I would aim for more symmetry in the boxes: try to have them the same width or at least vertically-aligned. Colour schemes are a matter for individual taste of course :-) My preference would be keep the dark box header + inverse text, make the rest black (or dark blue) on white. At least use consistent box header colour within a column. Also, don't forget some kind of contact information (email/URL/institution). - Neil Saunders

Ditto what Neil said. You've got way too much color - choose two, or three at most. I think the biopython logo gives you a nice color scheme to work with - gold, black, and yellow. Make the logos at left and right 75% smaller, make your title 125% bigger, and don't be afraid of whitespace. Eliminate the gray bar around the author names. I might even consider just doing a black outline for each of the boxes (or no outline at all), with the orange headers - Chris Miller

Never mind the colors: Even if the graphical design was perfect, I'm not sure there's much on this poster that would cause me to even slow down while browsing through a zillion posters. I suggest at least making the biopython URL large enough to be seen from far away; someone might remember and go have a look at the site during a boring talk... - Eric Jain

Another idea: since the poster does not present a sequential sequence of ideas from left to right, you might try a "radial" design: summarise the main points in a central box (or circle), arrange the other features around it on "spokes". - Neil Saunders

Those are all really good ideas. If you can free up some room, I'd try to keep the logos about that size or even make them bigger, otherwise ditto everything above. To get the benefit of Neil's radial idea without too much reformatting, I'd put the Python and BioPython boxes in the center column and the three that are now in the center into the left hand column. I'd also increase the padding around the text in the Python and BioPython boxes, they will be a bit longer but should still fit. To avoid too much worry about color, just make the "More" and "Much More" boxes the same blue as the others so that the outside columns match. Definitely lose the grey bar. - Bill Hooker

I would propose to use less and lighter colors - maybe play around with this: http://www.colorschemer.com/online... Maybe use simple gradients - that looks usually quite fancy. - Konrad Förstner

Minor issues: Why is there an empty line after "HMM" in the orange box? Maybe use bullet points in this box; Maybe add a white space after the bullet point in the big green box - Konrad Förstner

I can't comment on the content, but for the design I would: 1) use a grid system for the layout; 2) use a colour scheme (http://colorschemedesigner.com/, http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes... or http://www.colourlovers.com/blog...); 3) Use up to a maximum of two different fonts (e.g. one for the titles and one for the main text). It is good to leave space in between the boxes and not try and fill up empty space because you feel you have to. I would also add your photo to the poster so that people know who you are. - Paul Bacchus

Agreed with Eric's comments on the URL; combine it with the Biopython box and increase the size. After all, the purpose of the poster is to get people to visit the site and join the community. For the sequence box, I would show translation instead of transcription, as it's too easy to do replace("T", "U") without a framework. For the SeqIO box, how about example code instead of the table? Fastq to Fasta conversion is very popular recently. - Brad Chapman

By the way, it's great to see brave souls putting stuff out there for "open peer review", and to see polite, constructive feedback. More of this please! - Neil Saunders

Wow, so many helpful people out there. Thanks you all for taking the time to comment! I will not have time to implement all the comments (I also got quite a few from the Biopythoneers!). Probably attenuate the colors to a better scheme (thanks fro the link!), and standardize boxes' width. I wish I had the time to do the spoke thing. @Paul: one suggestion I will NOT follow up upon is to put my photo up: that would scare people... ;) - Iddo Friedberg

+1 Neil, this is a great example of community in action. - Bill Hooker