How medical illustration and animation can boost your medical conference booth or presentation
You may not have given illustration or animation a lot of thought for your conference presentation, after all if you're presenting your own data, you no doubt will have put together figures already for journal publication. So what more do you need?
>> Insights from our Now Medical Studios team
Case study
NanoView BioScience and their unique branded graphics.
Don't tell a good story, tell a great story
When you are presenting at a conference, whether this takes the form of a presentation to a large audience or you are at pitching to potential clients at your trade stand booth, the key thing is communicating your message effectively. Truly connecting with your audience can be very challenging particularly in a busy conference environment where you will be competing with others in a busy trade hall, or maybe your talk is one of many lighting rounds pinned in the middle of a packed seminar session. You need to stand out and connect with your audience.
One of the best ways to do this is to make sure the information you want to get across to your audience is concise and easy to grasp—quickly. Long, wordy explanations or a stream of sequential graphs and data can be very off-putting to someone who's probably already suffering from information overload and thinking about when their next cup of coffee is coming.
When communicating your work, you want to tell a great story, something that leaves a lasting impression to your audience without them having to work to digest a lot of complex material in order to understand where you are coming from.
One of the best ways to do this is to think about information design. Like all good stories, this should involve setting out the scene, introducing the main players and telling us about a problem and how it was solved. As medical illustrators, this is something we are experts in. We can take your story and transform it into a visual language that will engage your viewers. The old adage, "a picture says a thousand words" is never truer when it comes to medical communication and well thought through imagery will lead people through your story and creating an easily accessible format for your audience.
Stand out from your competitors with a professional and polished edge.
Clean, glossy, and highly polished will always stand out from the crowd. How you present your information in this environment will say a lot about your research and/or the company or institution you are representing. Cluttered information that requires a lot of effort on behalf of the audience can result in you losing a bit of credibility. Expressing your information in a refined and polished manner will help your potential clients or audience lean into the ideas or products that you're offering.
This can be achieved in many ways:
Branding is on point: Making sure your story is clear is important but also including slick and consistent branding across your presentation materials help to add to that professional feel (inconsistency can be distracting).
Customized images: Medical illustrations can be used to help complement or reinforce your ideas or points you want to make. Combining verbal cues with images or better yet, using animation is a proven method that helps with the retention of information in a fast-paced conference environment.
Clear calls to action: Your illustrations must be of a high standard, however, careful thought should be given to the flow of information and final call to action. There is nothing worse than leaving the audience trying to work out how what should be their next steps in engaging with you more.
Use animations where you can
If a story tells a thousand words, imagine how much you can quickly say with an animation. But animations are not only important in storytelling they are a really great way to engage an audience. People generally have a limited attention span, and it is no wonder as there are so many things in their environment competing for their focus.
An animation is a useful tool for grabbing attention by evoking something in the viewer and leaving them wanting to follow the story to see what happens next. It's a well-tested method of growing and maintaining an audience. Memorable content can also translate into very shareable content on social media and has a lot of potentials to be far-reaching.
Use social media to your advantage
Conference venues, particularly international ones tend to occupy large spaces and have many speaker sessions running in parallel over a short time frame. It can be easy to overlooked with so much going on. Be the bell of the conference ball for visitors at your booth but you can also reach a wider audience for those looking in from afar. Repeat your story, visuals, graphics, and animations on your social media channels when you're at the conference. Use careful hashtags to drive people to your booth. Maybe they missed you on day 1, but after seeing your social posts, they'll be sure to drop in on day 2.
Who can you call to help?
Medical illustrators are skilled at knowing how best to engage with your target audience, not only do we get your science and technology, but we also have an understanding of who you are pitching your ideas to. We have a wealth of experience in creating visual material from your trade stand to your social media accounts. Bringing on board an experienced medical illustration team can not only save you a lot of time by putting together a slick branded package of materials, but can also insure that your visibility is maximised and memorable.
We hope you found this article useful and supplied you with plenty of inspiration on how you can take your conference presentations to the next level.
