*This is a poster for the exhibition in IS-MPMI Congress 2023 & Satellite Meeting Session "The Making of a Story" "A picture is worth a thousand words: Communicating your research in graphics" Scientific communication is a broad field that encompasses various forms of media including graphics. Graphics are a crucial method for visualization and storytelling. Dated back to The Renaissance and even earlier through prehistoric cave paintings, humans have long been using art to depict the natural world surrounding us. Although the tools of illustration have changed over time, the primary purpose of scientific images stays the same – it is to help share complex concepts and discoveries in an engaging and comprehensive way. While in earlier days, scientific illustrations, focused on depicting the accurate representations of the often unobservable (e.g. medical images, exotic specimens, and microscopic world), nowadays scientific illustration is a new form of art. From data visualization to press images, scientists use research graphics to promote their research to a broader audience. Even among researchers, we usually benefit from a paper’s graphical abstract or model diagram to obtain the key message in a glance before reading the full text. However, while we researchers know our work best, many of us may have little experience in visual design and struggle to demonstrate ideas in graphics. In this session we will (1) introduce the modern forms of science art, (2) discuss the principles of developing a scientific illustration, (3) share how the artists are inspired through multiple case studies, and (4) provide useful tips on preparing your own research graphic.

Please cite the DOI when using information/images from the poster. For the reference images used in this presentation, all rights reserved to the original authors.