Home Blog Design How to Design a Winning Poster Presentation: Quick Guide with Examples & Templates
How to Design a Winning Poster Presentation: Quick Guide with Examples & Templates
How are research posters like High School science fair projects? Quite similar, in fact.
Both are visual representations of a research project shared with peers, colleagues and academic faculty. But there’s a big difference: it’s all in professionalism and attention to detail. You can be sure that the students that thrived in science fairs are now creating fantastic research posters, but what is that extra element most people miss when designing a poster presentation?
This guide will teach tips and tricks for creating poster presentations for conferences, symposia, and more. Learn in-depth poster structure and design techniques to help create academic posters that have a lasting impact.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
- What is a Research Poster?
Why are Poster Presentations important?
Overall dimensions and orientation, separation into columns and sections, scientific, academic, or something else, a handout with supplemental and contact information, cohesiveness, design and readability, storytelling.
- Font Characteristics
- Color Pairing
- Data Visualization Dimensions
- Alignment, Margins, and White Space
Scientific/Academic Conference Poster Presentation
Digital research poster presentations, slidemodel poster presentation templates, how to make a research poster presentation step-by-step, considerations for printing poster presentations, how to present a research poster presentation, final words, what is a research poster .
Research posters are visual overviews of the most relevant information extracted from a research paper or analysis. They are essential communication formats for sharing findings with peers and interested people in the field. Research posters can also effectively present material for other areas besides the sciences and STEM—for example, business and law.
You’ll be creating research posters regularly as an academic researcher, scientist, or grad student. You’ll have to present them at numerous functions and events. For example:
- Conference presentations
- Informational events
- Community centers
The research poster presentation is a comprehensive way to share data, information, and research results. Before the pandemic, the majority of research events were in person. During lockdown and beyond, virtual conferences and summits became the norm. Many researchers now create poster presentations that work in printed and digital formats.
Let’s look at why it’s crucial to spend time creating poster presentations for your research projects, research, analysis, and study papers.
Research posters represent you and your sponsor’s research
Research papers and accompanying poster presentations are potent tools for representation and communication in your field of study. Well-performing poster presentations help scientists, researchers, and analysts grow their careers through grants and sponsorships.
When presenting a poster presentation for a sponsored research project, you’re representing the company that sponsored you. Your professionalism, demeanor, and capacity for creating impactful poster presentations call attention to other interested sponsors, spreading your impact in the field.
Research posters demonstrate expertise and growth
Presenting research posters at conferences, summits, and graduate grading events shows your expertise and knowledge in your field of study. The way your poster presentation looks and delivers, plus your performance while presenting the work, is judged by your viewers regardless of whether it’s an officially judged panel.
Recurring visitors to research conferences and symposia will see you and your poster presentations evolve. Improve your impact by creating a great poster presentation every time by paying attention to detail in the poster design and in your oral presentation. Practice your public speaking skills alongside the design techniques for even more impact.
Poster presentations create and maintain collaborations
Every time you participate in a research poster conference, you create meaningful connections with people in your field, industry or community. Not only do research posters showcase information about current data in different areas, but they also bring people together with similar interests. Countless collaboration projects between different research teams started after discussing poster details during coffee breaks.
An effective research poster template deepens your peer’s understanding of a topic by highlighting research, data, and conclusions. This information can help other researchers and analysts with their work. As a research poster presenter, you’re given the opportunity for both teaching and learning while sharing ideas with peers and colleagues.
Anatomy of a Winning Poster Presentation
Do you want your research poster to perform well? Following the standard layout and adding a few personal touches will help attendees know how to read your poster and get the most out of your information.
The overall size of your research poster ultimately depends on the dimensions of the provided space at the conference or research poster gallery. The poster orientation can be horizontal or vertical, with horizontal being the most common. In general, research posters measure 48 x 36 inches or are an A0 paper size.
A virtual poster can be the same proportions as the printed research poster, but you have more leeway regarding the dimensions. Virtual research posters should fit on a screen with no need to scroll, with 1080p resolution as a standard these days. A horizontal presentation size is ideal for that.
A research poster presentation has a standard layout of 2–5 columns with 2–3 sections each. Typical structures say to separate the content into four sections; 1. A horizontal header 2. Introduction column, 3. Research/Work/Data column, and 4. Conclusion column. Each unit includes topics that relate to your poster’s objective. Here’s a generalized outline for a poster presentation:
- Condensed Abstract
- Objectives/Purpose
- Methodology
- Recommendations
- Implications
- Acknowledgments
- Contact Information
The overview content you include in the units depends on your poster presentations’ theme, topic, industry, or field of research. A scientific or academic poster will include sections like hypothesis, methodology, and materials. A marketing analysis poster will include performance metrics and competitor analysis results.
There’s no way a poster can hold all the information included in your research paper or analysis report. The poster is an overview that invites the audience to want to find out more. That’s where supplement material comes in. Create a printed PDF handout or card with a QR code (created using a QR code generator ). Send the audience to the best online location for reading or downloading the complete paper.
What Makes a Poster Presentation Good and Effective?
For your poster presentation to be effective and well-received, it needs to cover all the bases and be inviting to find out more. Stick to the standard layout suggestions and give it a unique look and feel. We’ve put together some of the most critical research poster-creation tips in the list below. Your poster presentation will perform as long as you check all the boxes.
The information you choose to include in the sections of your poster presentation needs to be cohesive. Train your editing eye and do a few revisions before presenting. The best way to look at it is to think of The Big Picture. Don’t get stuck on the details; your attendees won’t always know the background behind your research topic or why it’s important.
Be cohesive in how you word the titles, the length of the sections, the highlighting of the most important data, and how your oral presentation complements the printed—or virtual—poster.
The most important characteristic of your poster presentation is its readability and clarity. You need a poster presentation with a balanced design that’s easy to read at a distance of 1.5 meters or 4 feet. The font size and spacing must be clear and neat. All the content must suggest a visual flow for the viewer to follow.
That said, you don’t need to be a designer to add something special to your poster presentation. Once you have the standard—and recognized—columns and sections, add your special touch. These can be anything from colorful boxes for the section titles to an interesting but subtle background, images that catch the eye, and charts that inspire a more extended look.
Storytelling is a presenting technique involving writing techniques to make information flow. Firstly, storytelling helps give your poster presentation a great introduction and an impactful conclusion.
Think of storytelling as the invitation to listen or read more, as the glue that connects sections, making them flow from one to another. Storytelling is using stories in the oral presentation, for example, what your lab partner said when you discovered something interesting. If it makes your audience smile and nod, you’ve hit the mark. Storytelling is like giving a research presentation a dose of your personality, and it can help turning your data into opening stories .
Design Tips For Creating an Effective Research Poster Presentation
The section above briefly mentioned how important design is to your poster presentation’s effectiveness. We’ll look deeper into what you need to know when designing a poster presentation.
1. Font Characteristics
The typeface and size you choose are of great importance. Not only does the text need to be readable from two meters away, but it also needs to look and sit well on the poster. Stay away from calligraphic script typefaces, novelty typefaces, or typefaces with uniquely shaped letters.
Stick to the classics like a sans serif Helvetica, Lato, Open Sans, or Verdana. Avoid serif typefaces as they can be difficult to read from far away. Here are some standard text sizes to have on hand.
- Title: 85 pt
- Authors: 65 pt
- Headings: 36 pt
- Body Text: 24 pt
- Captions: 18 pt
If you feel too prone to use serif typefaces, work with a font pairing tool that helps you find a suitable solution – and intend those serif fonts for heading sections only. As a rule, never use more than 3 different typefaces in your design. To make it more dynamic, you can work with the same font using light, bold, and italic weights to put emphasis on the required areas.
2. Color Pairing
Using colors in your poster presentation design is a great way to grab the viewer’s attention. A color’s purpose is to help the viewer follow the data flow in your presentation, not distract. Don’t let the color take more importance than the information on your poster.
Choose one main color for the title and headlines and a similar color for the data visualizations. If you want to use more than one color, don’t create too much contrast between them. Try different tonalities of the same color and keep things balanced visually. Your color palette should have at most one main color and two accent colors.
Black text over a white background is standard practice for printed poster presentations, but for virtual presentations, try a very light gray instead of white and a very dark gray instead of black. Additionally, use variations of light color backgrounds and dark color text. Make sure it’s easy to read from two meters away or on a screen, depending on the context. We recommend ditching full white or full black tone usage as it hurts eyesight in the long term due to its intense contrast difference with the light ambiance.
3. Data Visualization Dimensions
Just like the text, your charts, graphs, and data visualizations must be easy to read and understand. Generally, if a person is interested in your research and has already read some of the text from two meters away, they’ll come closer to look at the charts and graphs.
Fit data visualizations inside columns or let them span over two columns. Remove any unnecessary borders, lines, or labels to make them easier to read at a glance. Use a flat design without shadows or 3D characteristics. The text in legends and captions should stay within the chart size and not overflow into the margins. Use a unified text size of 18px for all your data visualizations.
4. Alignment, Margins, and White Space
Finally, the last design tip for creating an impressive and memorable poster presentation is to be mindful of the layout’s alignment, margins, and white space. Create text boxes to help keep everything aligned. They allow you to resize, adapt, and align the content along a margin or grid.
Take advantage of the white space created by borders and margins between sections. Don’t crowd them with a busy background or unattractive color.
Calculate margins considering a print format. It is a good practice in case the poster presentation ends up becoming in physical format, as you won’t need to downscale your entire design (affecting text readability in the process) to preserve information.
There are different tools that you can use to make a poster presentation. Presenters who are familiar with Microsoft Office prefer to use PowerPoint. You can learn how to make a poster in PowerPoint here.
Poster Presentation Examples
Before you start creating a poster presentation, look at some examples of real research posters. Get inspired and get creative.
Research poster presentations printed and mounted on a board look like the one in the image below. The presenter stands to the side, ready to share the information with visitors as they walk up to the panels.
With more and more conferences staying virtual or hybrid, the digital poster presentation is here to stay. Take a look at examples from a poster session at the OHSU School of Medicine .
Use SlideModel templates to help you create a winning poster presentation with PowerPoint and Google Slides. These poster PPT templates will get you off on the right foot. Mix and match tables and data visualizations from other poster slide templates to create your ideal layout according to the standard guidelines.
If you need a quick method to create a presentation deck to talk about your research poster at conferences, check out our Slides AI presentation maker. A tool in which you add the topic, curate the outline, select a design, and let AI do the work for you.
1. One-pager Scientific Poster Template for PowerPoint
A PowerPoint template tailored to make your poster presentations an easy-to-craft process. Meet our One-Pager Scientific Poster Slide Template, entirely editable to your preferences and with ample room to accommodate graphs, data charts, and much more.
Use This Template
2. Eisenhower Matrix Slides Template for PowerPoint
An Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful tool to represent priorities, classifying work according to urgency and importance. Presenters can use this 2×2 matrix in poster presentations to expose the effort required for the research process, as it also helps to communicate strategy planning.
3. OSMG Framework PowerPoint Template
Finally, we recommend presenters check our OSMG Framework PowerPoint template, as it is an ideal tool for representing a business plan: its goals, strategies, and measures for success. Expose complex processes in a simplified manner by adding this template to your poster presentation.
Remember these three words when making your research poster presentation: develop, design, and present. These are the three main actions toward a successful poster presentation.
The section below will take you on a step-by-step journey to create your next poster presentation.
Step 1: Define the purpose and audience of your poster presentation
Before making a poster presentation design, you’ll need to plan first. Here are some questions to answer at this point:
- Are they in your field?
- Do they know about your research topic?
- What can they get from your research?
- Will you print it?
- Is it for a virtual conference?
Step 2: Make an outline
With a clear purpose and strategy, it’s time to collect the most important information from your research paper, analysis, or documentation. Make a content dump and then select the most interesting information. Use the content to draft an outline.
Outlines help formulate the overall structure better than going straight into designing the poster. Mimic the standard poster structure in your outline using section headlines as separators. Go further and separate the content into the columns they’ll be placed in.
Step 3: Write the content
Write or rewrite the content for the sections in your poster presentation. Use the text in your research paper as a base, but summarize it to be more succinct in what you share.
Don’t forget to write a catchy title that presents the problem and your findings in a clear way. Likewise, craft the headlines for the sections in a similar tone as the title, creating consistency in the message. Include subtle transitions between sections to help follow the flow of information in order.
Avoid copying/pasting entire sections of the research paper on which the poster is based. Opt for the storytelling approach, so the delivered message results are interesting for your audience.
Step 4: Put it all together visually
This entire guide on how to design a research poster presentation is the perfect resource to help you with this step. Follow all the tips and guidelines and have an unforgettable poster presentation.
Moving on, here’s how to design a research poster presentation with PowerPoint Templates . Open a new project and size it to the standard 48 x 36 inches. Using the outline, map out the sections on the empty canvas. Add a text box for each title, headline, and body text. Piece by piece, add the content into their corresponding text box.
Transform the text information visually, make bullet points, and place the content in tables and timelines. Make your text visual to avoid chunky text blocks that no one will have time to read. Make sure all text sizes are coherent for all headings, body texts, image captions, etc. Double-check for spacing and text box formatting.
Next, add or create data visualizations, images, or diagrams. Align everything into columns and sections, making sure there’s no overflow. Add captions and legends to the visualizations, and check the color contrast with colleagues and friends. Ask for feedback and progress to the last step.
Step 5: Last touches
Time to check the final touches on your poster presentation design. Here’s a checklist to help finalize your research poster before sending it to printers or the virtual summit rep.
- Check the resolution of all visual elements in your poster design. Zoom to 100 or 200% to see if the images pixelate. Avoid this problem by using vector design elements and high-resolution images.
- Ensure that charts and graphs are easy to read and don’t look crowded.
- Analyze the visual hierarchy. Is there a visual flow through the title, introduction, data, and conclusion?
- Take a step back and check if it’s legible from a distance. Is there enough white space for the content to breathe?
- Does the design look inviting and interesting?
An often neglected topic arises when we need to print our designs for any exhibition purpose. Since A0 is a hard-to-manage format for most printers, these poster presentations result in heftier charges for the user. Instead, you can opt to work your design in two A1 sheets, which also becomes more manageable for transportation. Create seamless borders for the section on which the poster sheets should meet, or work with a white background.
Paper weight options should be over 200 gsm to avoid unwanted damage during the printing process due to heavy ink usage. If possible, laminate your print or stick it to photographic paper – this shall protect your work from spills.
Finally, always run a test print. Gray tints may not be printed as clearly as you see them on screen (this is due to the RGB to CMYK conversion process). Other differences can be appreciated when working with ink jet plotters vs. laser printers. Give yourself enough room to maneuver last-minute design changes.
Presenting a research poster is a big step in the poster presentation cycle. Your poster presentation might or might not be judged by faculty or peers. But knowing what judges look for will help you prepare for the design and oral presentation, regardless of whether you receive a grade for your work or if it’s business related. Likewise, the same principles apply when presenting at an in-person or virtual summit.
The opening statement
Part of presenting a research poster is welcoming the viewer to your small personal area in the sea of poster presentations. You’ll need an opening statement to pitch your research poster and get the viewers’ attention.
Draft a 2 to 3-sentence pitch that covers the most important points:
- What the research is
- Why was it conducted
- What the results say
From that opening statement, you’re ready to continue with the oral presentation for the benefit of your attendees.
The oral presentation
During the oral presentation, share the information on the poster while conversing with the interested public. Practice many times before the event. Structure the oral presentation as conversation points, and use the poster’s visual flow as support. Make eye contact with your audience as you speak, but don’t make them uncomfortable.
Pro Tip: In a conference or summit, if people show up to your poster area after you’ve started presenting it to another group, finish and then address the new visitors.
QA Sessions
When you’ve finished the oral presentation, offer the audience a chance to ask questions. You can tell them before starting the presentation that you’ll be holding a QA session at the end. Doing so will prevent interruptions as you’re speaking.
If presenting to one or two people, be flexible and answer questions as you review all the sections on your poster.
Supplemental Material
If your audience is interested in learning more, you can offer another content type, further imprinting the information in their minds. Some ideas include; printed copies of your research paper, links to a website, a digital experience of your poster, a thesis PDF, or data spreadsheets.
Your audience will want to contact you for further conversations; include contact details in your supplemental material. If you don’t offer anything else, at least have business cards.
Even though conferences have changed, the research poster’s importance hasn’t diminished. Now, instead of simply creating a printed poster presentation, you can also make it for digital platforms. The final output will depend on the conference and its requirements.
This guide covered all the essential information you need to know for creating impactful poster presentations, from design, structure and layout tips to oral presentation techniques to engage your audience better .
Before your next poster session, bookmark and review this guide to help you design a winning poster presentation every time.
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Research Poster Presentation templates
Posters are great for showing a certain amount of information at a glance in a short time. they're meant to be seen by many people that just walk by. what about showing a summary of a research or a paper with this selection of google slides & powerpoint templates, you'll have a printable design ready to pique everyone's interest..
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Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs, Sheets, Slides: Which Is Best?
Get creative in the linux terminal with these 9 artsy commands, 6 reasons to install windows on a steam deck, quick links, define the poster dimensions, design your poster.
Microsoft PowerPoint isn't just for presentations---it also provides all of the creative tools you need to design a beautiful poster. Just set the dimensions, design the poster, and print it out. Here's how to make a poster using PowerPoint.
Posters come in all sizes, but the first thing you need to know is PowerPoint's slide limit is 56-inches x 56-inches, so you'll need to plan accordingly. It's also important to note that you want to set your poster dimensions before you start designing your poster. Otherwise, you might end up having to rework parts of your design due to the size change.
Related: How to Reduce the File Size of a PowerPoint Presentation
Here are some of the standard poster sizes to get you started:
- Small poster: 11" x 17"
- Medium poster: 18" x 24"
- Large posters: 24" x 36" or 27" x 39"
Once you've decided on your poster size, set the dimensions in PowerPoint. To do this, open PowerPoint and navigate to the "Design" tab.
In the "Customize" group, select "Slide Size."
Select "Custom Slide Size" from the dropdown menu.
The "Slide Size" window will appear. Input the width and height specifications to match your required size. Keep in mind that if your height is larger in size than your width, the orientation of the slide will automatically change to "Portrait."
When you're finished, select "OK."
Once selected, a new window will appear giving you two scaling options: Maximize or Ensure Fit. If your slide already has content on it, you'll want to select "Ensure Fit."
Your slide will now be resized.
Your poster design is going to depend completely on you. You'll want to pay attention to the background of the poster, text and image arrangement, font size and style, etc. Essentially, you should treat this part exactly as if you were just creating another slide for a presentation.
Because the design and process of this step is going to differ for everyone, we'd like to offer some of our previous guides to get you started in the design process:
- Insert a picture or other object.
- Use an image as a background.
- Insert an image inside text.
- Get a picture behind text.
- Make a border or frame.
Once your design is ready, all that's left to do is print it out and hang it up!
Related: How to Troubleshoot Printing Issues in Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft PowerPoint
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How to design a poster presentation that makes your research stand out
Presenting a poster at a conference is an amazing opportunity to showcase your research, get valuable feedback, advance your career and make lasting connections. But we often see boring posters filled with unclear graphs, crammed with too much text and uninspiring images.
Let us help you create a beautiful award-winning poster with this blog and our extensive Poster Guidelines.
What is the goal of your poster presentation?
A quick reminder: The main goal of a poster presentation is not to share your research results. If that were the case, you could just publish it, email it to colleagues in your field or hand out copies of your paper during conferences. Instead, the goal of standing next to your poster is to have interaction with other researchers in your field , learn from their critical questions, feedback, and suggestions, and make connections for future collaborations.
Your new goal is to present your work clearly and make sure that people stop to talk to you about your work. To achieve this goal, you and your poster need to STAND OUT. If you do it well, presenting your poster is an incredible learning opportunity.
Collect feedback with your poster
Viviam participated in our poster design workshop and decided that her main goal was to collect feedback since she was running into obstacles with her PhD. She was very clever to create a poster around these obstacles and ask visitors to put post-its up with their tips. With this approach she won two poster awards!
“It was an amazing experience and the outcome was exactly what I wanted, a lot of interaction with the public, feedback, questions, many post-it notes, lots of connections in LinkedIn and possibly new collaborations. Also, my supervisors are extremely proud and happy. I couldn’t ask for more! THANK YOU!”
See her poster in our Hall of Fame .
Read more about the goal of your poster and how to write a good pitch in our blog Define the goal & pitch for your poster presentation
Your title is your main message
The one thing all your poster visitors are looking for is your main message. That’s why we want your main message to be visible at a glance! So make it easy for people to find it and make sure the largest text on your poster is your main message. Usually your title will be the text that stands out the most. Usually your main message is your research conclusion. But it doesn’t have to be! You can decide what you think is your main message. Is it a recommendation, a warning or a method to use? You can choose what you think is most interesting about the research.
Whatever you do, do not copy the descriptive title of your paper to your poster. Descriptive titles are horrible: they only show the topic and do not give the main conclusion. Let’s have a look at this generic title from this article on air pollution as an example: “Urban Air Pollution and Greenness in Relation to Public Health”. If we read it, we still don’t know anything. In other words, you’re delaying communicating the main message.
The best format for your title a conclusive statement. This way, even if people only read your title, they have already seen the most important message. This is what a conclusive statement looks like:
CONCLUSIVE STATEMENT: Expanding green spaces and enforcing low-carbon policies can effectively combat health risks from air pollution in Addis Ababa.
Write a conclusive title, so people can read your main message at a glance!
If it’s hard to write a clear conclusive statement or you don’t have results yet, a question would be a good alternative for your title. What about “Mental health in hospitals: what can health professionals do to ease the pain?”. It’s the perfect start to a conversation. Imagine what the first question would be that you can ask a person approaching you. It does not tell the whole story but makes people curious enough to walk up to your poster to read the answer or have a discussion with you.
For more examples and tips on how to formulate your title, read our blog Write a compelling title about your research . Learn why descriptive titles are the worst for good science communication and try out different main messages to see which one works best for your research.
The 5-second science communication rule
In general, you only have a few seconds to grab attention with your poster. People will only stop at your poster if they are drawn in by an interesting title or a stunning design. When they decided to slow down and start reading more, it takes them about 30 seconds to read your poster. This is not reading in a traditional sense, but more skimming the titles. This means that if your titles are words such as Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion they will still have no idea what your research is about!
Reading your poster should not be a chore. Test it with some friends or colleagues. Show them your poster for 30 seconds, and ask them what they think is your main message, and what result/word/graph/design piqued their interest.
Write down your research as a story
In our workshops, we ask participants to write down their research in a single paragraph or a one-minute speech and then shorten it until you have a few sentences. Those sentences are then used to write the headings of your poster (we call them chapters). This way, your audience doesn’t have to read each the paragraphs to find what they’re looking for, but can scan the headings of your poster and immediately understand the core message from your research.
Answering the following questions help you get started:
Why are you doing your research? What is your ultimate goal?
What is the underlying problem? When your research is about urgent topics that people know about, like curing cancer or stopping climate change, you won’t have to elaborate on the topic in a lengthy introduction. Then you can just start with “We want to find a better way to diagnose breast cancer”.
e.g. We want to slow down Alzheimer’s disease / find a cure for small-cell carcinoma / find out which cells are responsible for skin cancer. | We want to improve patient care in hospitals. | We want to understand the environmental causes of obesity. | We aim to study the best way to lose weight. | We want to develop a new standard for research outcomes. (Just a few examples from our clients)
However, your research might be about a problem or observation people don’t know about yet. If that’s the case, you have to explain the problem AND the goal or solution to the problem with a longer sentence:
e.g. Crucian carp can survive in ice-covered lakes without oxygen for months. We want to know if DNA methylation acts as a switch to transition from summer to winter months.
What exactly are you looking at in your research? How are you executing your research?
e.g. you are studying human behavior, performing cell microscopy, literature research in the national archives, interviews in local communities.
e.g. you are doing epidemiology, meta-analysis, RCT, in-vitro cells, computer modeling, AI, fieldwork, (online) questionnaires.
What makes your research, approach, or team unique?
e.g. We’re doing the first multi-disciplinary research into obesity prevention / We have an international team with over 20 participating countries / We developed a unique new technique or methodology / We combine all available data to date / We have a specific breed of mice that might answer the question better / This is the first time anyone has ever looked at X or used method Y.
This would result in a sentence like this:
To find out how to slow down Alzheimer’s disease, we are using new metabolomic profiling techniques to find pathways to prevent beta-amyloid proteins from forming harmful plaques in the brain.
This can be the new subtitle or large quote of your poster! It’s the main summary of what you’re trying to achieve.
Example of a story-based poster
Let’s have a look at this poster example we created from a paper on microbes in the Antarctic. We’ve written out each section (Introduction, Methods, Results, Conclusion) as a conclusive statement. This makes it easy to scan and read for your audience. You can add more details in the paragraph text or graphs. But don’t overcrowd your poster, if people want all the details, handing out your actual peer-reviewed journal article is a better way to show these.
Since most people are afraid that leaving out the traditional structure will be confusing, we’ve included them as eyebrow headings. Learn about eyebrow headings and text design in part 3 of our Poster Guidelines )
Learn how you can write an engaging research story for your poster in our blog How to write a story from your research for posters & infographics .
Poster prep-time!
- Think about what you want to get out of this poster presentation. Do you want to connect with at least 3 senior researchers? Do you want to get feedback on a specific result? Do you want to discuss your methods and ask others how they would do this?
- Prepare what you want to say when someone approaches your poster. Or better yet, what you want to ask them.
- Think about what critical questions people may have about your poster and prepare a short answer. Is your research about dairy and it is funded by the dairy industry? Expect some critical questions. Be grateful you get these questions, it’s what proper scientific discussion is all about!
Do not conform to “standards” imposed by the conference
We know that you often have to adhere to guidelines for your poster presentation. Maybe you have to abide by a standard template from your institution, or have huge logos from every single collaborator (and even pictures of their locations!) on it. We advise that you do NOT give in to these demands without a fight. Remember: these guidelines are not made by science communication experts, but often by the press officer with a desire for a uniform look or by more senior scientists who think design is something achieved by rainbow-colored text effects in Word. You get our frustration…
Of course, it’s good to adhere to the physical format of the poster mount and have large and legible text, but we’ll try to push you out of your comfort zone here a bit. You will not get punished by anyone for using different colors than your institution, use a different font, and use design in a way that makes your research pop. Remember: you can not stand out if your poster looks like all the other boring posters in the room!
TEXT: How to make sure your main message stands out
Don’t structure your presentation like a paper.
Ditch the abstract/introduction/results/conclusion/acknowledgments structure and create your own interesting titles. Instead: write conclusive titles that people can skim. This means that you should make sure that your titles (the largest texts on your poster) tell your story.
Turn headings into conclusions & quotes
Instead of the vague descriptive title “Costs of diabetes” you can turn it into the main conclusive message: “Total costs of diabetes have increased to $245 billion.” Which one do you prefer?
This means that you do NOT highlight the least interesting words on your paper, but let the MESSAGE stand out. We cringe when we see the words “Background” highlighted in huge bright blue text, and the main message obscured in smaller text.
An example: How to structure your research (based on https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32023777 ).
Which behavioral and nutritional factors are targets for stomach cancer prevention programmes?
A meta-analysis and systematic review of 14 behavioral and nutritional factors in 52,916 studies.
Helicobacter pylori infection, smoking, alcohol, high salt intake were identified as the main factors contributing to stomach cancer.
These results may be utilized for ranking and prioritizing preventable risk factors to implement effective prevention programs.
As you can see, with the new structure, it’s already a short explanation of your entire research! Way to go!
TIP: Does your research show negative results? Shout it from the rooftops! Don’t be disappointed, your research is just as important as anyone else’s. Do not hide it, show it, so other people can learn from it.
Check out part 3 of our Poster Guideline for tips on structure, and writing texts:
DESIGN: Keep it clean and simple
How do you think you will come across if you use different backgrounds, colors and fonts for every slide? Does that really make you look creative and professional? We know it’s tempting, but don’t use every tool PowerPoint has given you to design with. Don’t use gradients, drop-shadows, text effects if you don’t know how to use them.
The design of your poster should support your story, provide structure, and make your presentation more effective. Design can also help distinguish between the main message and supporting information. By using different designs for your main thread and quotes, anecdotes, or examples you make sure people don’t lose sight of your most important messages.
We love to show bad examples, so check out this poster presentation dissection:
Get inspired by creative posters in our Poster Hall of Fame
We’re so proud of our workshops participants when they create a beautiful poster or win a poster award! So we created a hall of fame to showcase great posters. As you will see, there is no one standard, you can create any type of poster and still attract attention. Each poster is made under different circumstances and conference requirements.
Only use bullet points for actual lists
If there is one piece of advice we would love for you to remember from this post: do NOT use bullet points for sentences! It transforms them into weird short sentences and doesn’t make your messages any clearer. Please, only use bullet points for actual lists. Like countries or disease outcomes you are measuring. Disregard your instinct to put bullets before sentences and just write a nice readable paragraph instead. People will love you for it! If you’re feeling creative you can always ask yourself the question of whether there are better ways to visualize your bullet points. Showing the countries you’ve gathered data from in an actual map is MUCH more informative than a list (anybody knows where Kyrgyzstan is located exactly?). We often use https://mapchart.net/world.html for creating maps.
COLOR: When in doubt, start with white and grey, and add a single pop of color.
We’re not going to explain color theory here. And don’t be afraid to use ANY color you want. Just make sure to check whether it has enough contrast with the background to be legible (with the WebAIM contrast checker ). Don’t waste your time on this. When in doubt, choose 1 single color (or shades of the same color) and combine it with black for text and white and light grey for backgrounds, boxes, and borders. Add a single pop of color to create focus where you want the audience to look, e.g. important keywords, arrows, and your main message. We have added some color scheme examples in our Poster Presentation Template (see below).
Check out part 5 of our Poster Guideline for tips on the use of colors.
IMAGES: Only use images that contribute to your message
Text alone can be a bit uninspiring sometimes. We encourage the use of images but make sure they contribute to your message. Either use them to show which topic you are researching (e.g. plane aerodynamics, body fat distribution, or the history of women’s rights), or when they have intrinsic value and show something that you cannot point out in words (e.g. the location of an aorta stent, or the flow of information between low-orbit satellites). Don’t add cute images of people, landscapes, university buildings or flower patterns to spice up your poster. Check out our favorite resources for good free copyright-free images and design tools.
So please don’t use random useless stock photo’s like these in your presentation! #facepalm
GRAPHS: Make sure people can read a graph without having to consult a legend or description.
A graph is better than a table. It’s much easier to understand relationships in your data when presented visually in a graph than as numbers in a table. However, a conclusion drawn from the data, presented as a main conclusion with a single number (e.g. alcohol consumption is 23% higher in France than in Sweden) is better than your run-of-the-mill graph with a vague description of the two axes.
Write graph titles as a conclusion of your result.
Which title do you think is better?
Projected disease prevalence and mortality reduction over 20 years for the population aged 18 to 95 years in nine European countries with lower salt intake.
Lower salt intake reduced the prevalence of stroke in Poland by 13.5%
Don’t use separate legends in your graph (e.g. those boxes on the side of the graph). If possible, put the text/label explaining what a line represents next to the line. This prevents people from having to go back and forth between the graph and legend to understand its message.
Check out part 5 of our Poster Guideline for tips on datavisualization.
- Do not copy your complex research paper title as the title on a poster. Create a short and snappy poster title that draws people in.
- Don’t include any text, graph, or image that does not contribute to your main points. If people can understand your main message without them, leave them out.
- Never apply chart junk in your graphs, remove all unnecessary lines/gradients/grids.
- Don’t use high-contrast boxes with rounded corners: this creates weird arrows between boxes that draw your eye to the area in between text.
- Avoid unclear QR codes, people will have no idea what happens after they scan it and it’s often being used for fraudulent purposes.
- Rewrite the title into an intriguing question or statement, so people know what to talk to you about.
- Your main purpose/unique proposition/interesting result should be the largest text on the poster. You should be able to read it from five meters away.
- Ensure that everything on the poster is self-explanatory. Avoid abbreviations and acronyms.
- Make sure it’s clear from the poster who you are. Highlight one of the authors, or add a (recent, professional) portrait, so people can also find you later if they visited the poster when you were away.
- White. Space. Scientists seem to think that white space is wasted space that needs more text crammed in. The opposite is true. More white space makes your poster seem less daunting, and easier to approach.
- Have a call to action on your poster. Who do you want people to contact, and what would you want to talk about in future communications? Include your Twitter, LinkedIn, email if possible.
- When in doubt about the colors: choose white and light grey and add a single pop of color. It’s the safest bet!
- Avoid jargon. You can get into jargon and details AFTER people have approached you and your poster.
- Use enough contrast between the background and letters so people can actually read it. You can check your contrast at: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
Creative ideas for those who are ready to conquer the world with their research:
- Laminate your poster and give people a whiteboard marker to write things on it or highlight sections they think are important. This is not only a nice gimmick that people will remember, but can be good for you as a reminder of the feedback you were given. As an added bonus it gives visitors a chance to interact with each other.
- Bring a prop related to your research to the stand. Do you research fat cells? Bring a pound of lard with you. Do you research tooth health? Bring a plastic jaw with you that people can look at.
Tip: Print on textiles instead of paper. Easier to take with you on a plane without tearing or creasing. However, do this only when you are going to use the poster multiple times, it’s a waste of material otherwise.
To hand out or not to hand out?
A hand-out is a great way to get into depth without cramming every single detail into your poster. But you might just have printed 20 copies and nobody to hand it out to. Also, who reads all the things they collect when they get home? In other words: we do not advise you to bring hand-outs.
As useful as it may seem, we think that making the connection is more important than sharing the details of your research right then and there. So instead, give out your LinkedIn or ResearchGate details or your personal website URL, so you are instantly connected and they will see any new updates you post in their timeline. If they are still interested in the details, you have their contact information to send them your paper when it’s published!
POSTER PRESENTATION – A CASE STUDY
Have you read all our tips but still don’t know how to implement them in your poster? Don’t worry, we will go over a case study of an existing poster presentation.
For this case study, we worked together with Joseph Diab , a PhD candidate in bioanalytical chemistry at The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) doing research into Ulcerative Colitis. He wanted to update his poster for his next poster presentation and volunteered with us to make it better.
The BEFORE poster
The poster he made was a typical poster, not bad at all actually, we’ve seen much, much worse… But there was plenty to improve. Let’s go over the poster to find out what could be improved.
The good thing about the poster was that the main title was written in big text, and he even emphasized the most important words. This is a great way to have it stand out more. He did not fall into the trap of having his paper title as the main title, and put it in smaller text below. He was right to make the conclusion bigger as well.
However, there is room for improvement. When you look at the poster while squinting your eyes, only the main title jumps out at you. There is not much larger text to scan to get a feel for what he’s trying to tell us. We’re also missing the reason he is doing this research. Why is it important to reveal the metabolomic signature? If the urgency is missing, people might walk past your poster.
So, to make his poster better we’ve given Joseph some homework questions about his research. These are his answers:
What do you want to get out of this poster presentation? Joseph: I want to get feedback on how to proceed and validate these finding, and how to unravel the role of microbiota in IBD (Inflammatory bowel disease).
Can you tell me in your own words what the main purpose of your research is? Joseph: IBD is an untreatable nasty disease. The only available treatment just makes the patients go from active inflammation into remission. Most of these patients will develop inflammation again. Moreover, 20-30% of the patients develop very severe outcomes and need surgery, and they might die from complications or from cancer (caused by the treatment failure). In my research, we aim to find a biomarker to predict the outcome from the moments the patient gets the diagnosis.
Why is your research unique? Joseph: This is the first study to determine the full proteomic and transcriptomic profile in treatment-naïve and deep-remission UC patients.
What is the relevance of your results in the real world? Joseph: We are using metabolomics to improve the patient’s stratification in IBD.
We love it when researchers explain something in their own words, it’s so much clearer than when written as a paper! Here are the steps we took to improve his poster:
Step 1: Create an engaging main message.
We’ve rewritten the main message of his poster to include the main goal of his research (to improve IBD treatment) and made it a bit more interesting by adding part of his research results stating that he has found the “first clue”. This is a great way of showing that each research project is just one small step towards final answers, and this can make your audience a bit more curious. Who doesn’t like to figure out clues? This way the title also gives away a part of the results, which makes it easier for people to understand what you’ve accomplished.
Before: Ulcerative Colitis is characterized by altered tryptophan and fatty acid metabolism.
After: Finding biomarkers to improve the personalized treatment of Ulcerative Colitis. Altered tryptophan and fatty acid metabolism provide the first clue.
Step 2: Put the most important messages first.
In Joseph’s poster, like in so many, the conclusion is hidden away at the end of the poster. We’ve moved it up next to the title. In addition, we’ve moved the author affiliations to the bottom of the poster. They were taking up too much prime real estate, and it’s not very relevant for your audience.
Step 3: Create an effective design
We were lucky that Joseph was doing research in a field that is easy to visualize. Ulcerative Colitis is a disease of the large intestines, so we used an illustration of one to enhance the design. This was not just to “make it pretty”, but also to visually show the topic and draw your eye towards the most important message: the conclusion. People recognize an intestine much faster than reading the text.
We stayed away from the boring academic blue. Everybody is using it, which is a good reason to not use it yourself (the easiest way to stand out!). In this case the best choice was to just use the colors from the image. With this bright pink as an accent color, and whites and greys as main colors, you generate a nice cohesive color scheme in a snap!
TIP : If you can find a relevant image for your poster, always use that color in your color scheme! PowerPoint now has an eyedropper tool that enables you to pick any color from an image and use it in texts or boxes.
We wanted to separate the different paragraphs, but not draw too much attention to it by using dark backgrounds, thick borders or lots of contrast, so we used subtle shadow which divides the main sections but does not distract.
Step 4: Emphasize your most important messages
Our advice is to de-emphasize words such as methods and background . However, this might be a bit scary, since it deviates so much from what posters have looked like for years. So we decided to keep it, but use a smaller font size. We used the pink color to emphasize the most important sentences and draw your eyes towards them. If you squint and just read the larger pink text, you should be able to understand the research. We wanted to make it stand out more and make it bigger, but there was not enough space on the poster to increase the font size. An important lesson in working with limitations!
Step 5: Make it engaging and easy to understand for your audience
To make sure the answers to Joseph’s homework were included in the poster, we came up with the “What’s new” section. Just reading this section gives you a very good grasp of the main goal and why the research is unique.
The “How can you help?” section prompts the visitor to have a conversation and invites them to share their ideas about this topic. This is the conversation starter you need for a successful poster presentation.
Step 6: Kill your darlings
There is never enough space on a poster, so we needed to scrap some of the texts and graphs. For each graph, we asked whether it was really necessary to include. Did this graph really contribute to the main message, or could anyone at the conference understand the research perfectly fine without it?
As you can see, we ditched one of the two almost similar multivariate analysis graphs. They showed almost the same thing. We also removed the Venn diagram. It contained some very detailed information that was not essential for the main message and therefore took up too much valuable space.
We also wrote new titles for the graphs in the results section. Instead of a descriptive title (Pathway analysis), we wrote a concluding title (Integrated pathway analysis provides a unique and detailed snapshot of the metabolic changes in the onset of UC.). You want to give away your conclusion from the graph, not have people spend 5 minutes trying to figure it out themselves from looking at the dots.
In the graphs we made the outlying pathways more prominent with the dark blue background, so you can immediately find these pathways without having to read all of them.
Step 7: Background information & call to action
There is always some boring information you have to include, or your supervisors won’t be happy. Logos of your institutions, affiliations, the title of your paper. We put them where they belong: on the bottom of the page in smaller font. Very few people will be interested in this at first glance.
We do want to show who the person is behind the poster, so we kept the headshot of Joseph and added a call to action: Connect with Joseph Diab for more details and a discussion of this paper.
This lowers the threshold for people to connect with Joseph later. After all: he invited them to email him already! Since Joseph is active on Twitter we included his Twitter handle as well as his email address. This is very important. If you want to keep in touch with people who pass by, you have to give them your contact information.
A QR code might sound very hip, but we advise against using it. For starters, it’s not really telling anyone where you will end up. Are you linking to the paper, to Joseph’s personal website, his Twitter account, or his University’s website? People might not even have a smartphone or QR reader. The best thing is to ask people on the spot to connect with you on LinkedIn, Twitter, or send you an email, so you’re sure they will keep in touch.
The result:
Check out Joseph attracting attention with his new poster at the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) 2020 annual congress:
A poster presentation template to not take too seriously
Want to get a head-start on designing your poster? We’ve developed a simple template for your poster to get you ahead of the curve. But don’t take this template too seriously! In fact, we usually advise against using templates, if everybody starts using them, nobody will stand out. It’s your job to make it interesting and fit your needs and limitations.
Check out our extensive Poster Design Guidelines
The ultimate guide for good poster presentation design. Use it to create a well-designed poster that stands out and effectively communicates your research. We’ve created this together with conference organizers, scientists and universities. It’s based over a decade of experience with (visual) science communication.
Submit your poster design
Are you proud of your poster, did you win an award, or do you think it can serve as inspiration for others? Send over your poster, with a quote, your name and a link to your LinkedIn page. An we might just feature it! Send your poster with a short description and link your your LinkedIn profile to me at [email protected] .
Want to learn how to create amazing posters? Check out our workshop on Poster presentation & Infographic design .
About the Author: Liesbeth Smit
Search for more scicomm tips:, read more about science communication:.
Write a compelling title about your research
How to write a story from your research: structure for posters & infographics
Tool to create your own data visualisation with icons
Increase the visibility of your research project website and reach your target audience
Find inspiration for your design & create a unique style for your research website
Define the goal & pitch for your poster presentation
Become a pro science communicator with our workshops.
Impact through creative science communication
Do you want to have a positive effect on the world? We'll make you think about your goal, audience, and message and ensure you know what it takes to create impact! Also available as a keynote lecture.
Basics of science communication, pitch your research to any audience
By understanding your audience and aligning your message to their needs, you can really get your point across. In this workshop you’ll create a short pitch or article to practice just that.
Design effective posters, graphical abstracts & infographics about your research
Create beautiful and effective infographics, posters and graphical abstracts. You will learn the best practices in design to make sure your work gets noticed and is easier to understand.
Science and journalism: how to pursue and navigate media attention
Do you want to be more confident around journalists or the media? Or do you want to take advantage of the opportunities that social media offer for scientists? We'll get you started!
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How to Create a Research Poster
- Poster Basics
- Design Tips
- Logos & Images
What is a Research Poster?
Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program. Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion.
The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats. At a conference, the researcher stands by the poster display while other participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.
What Makes a Good Poster?
- Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
- Title is short and draws interest
- Word count of about 300 to 800 words
- Text is clear and to the point
- Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read
- Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
- Consistent and clean layout
- Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation
A Sample of a Well Designed Poster
View this poster example in a web browser .
Image credit: Poster Session Tips by [email protected], via Penn State
Where do I begin?
Answer these three questions:.
- What is the most important/interesting/astounding finding from my research project?
- How can I visually share my research with conference attendees? Should I use charts, graphs, photos, images?
- What kind of information can I convey during my talk that will complement my poster?
What software can I use to make a poster?
A popular, easy-to-use option. It is part of Microsoft Office package and is available on the library computers in rooms LC337 and LC336. ( Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint ).
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign
Feature-rich professional software that is good for posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive. NYU Faculty, Staff, and Students can access and download the Adobe Creative Suite .
Open Source Alternatives
- OpenOffice is the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its PowerPoint alternative).
- Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products.
- For charts and diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts .
- A complete list of free graphics software .
A Sample of a Poorly Designed Poster
View this bad poster example in a browser.
Image Credit: Critique by Better Posters
- Next: Design Tips >>
- Last Updated: Jul 9, 2024 5:34 PM
- URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/posters
Presentation Poster Templates
Here you can find research poster templates that can be edited to make your own poster presentations. Free poster presentation templates are available for PowerPoint (.pptx), Google Slides, and OpenOffice for PC and Mac. Poster presentation templates are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
48×36 Research Poster Presentation Template
View on Google Slides | Download (pptx)
42×42 Research Poster Presentation Template
40×28 Research Poster Presentation Template
55×28.5 Research Poster Presentation Template
PowerPoint does not allow a filet to use dimensions greater than 56″ so if you need a very large poster size, can use a scaled template. For instance, for a 94×94 poster size dimension, use the 42×42 poster and scale it 200%.
How to use the poster templates?
If you are using Microsoft PowerPoint, download the .pptx version and open it in PowerPoint. It is compatible with Mac and PC (Windows).
If you are using Google Slides to design your poster presentation, click View on Google Slides and then go to File -> Make a Copy to create your own copy of the presentation. Starting from this point you’d be able to edit the poster and add your own data, images and content.
Can I edit the poster presentations?
Yes. Poster templates can be edited to fit your presentation needs. Remember to save your changes. You can edit the presentation by adding your own content, data charts and images. It is possible to replace the top left logo by any logo image you want or remove it completely if it is not required. You can also remove the footer with our logo, notes and comments.
Poster designs are fully customizable and can be edited to change colors with a few clicks. The poster presentation format follow most standard US and international poster sizes and supports different versions of PowerPoint. Only basic PowerPoint skills are required. The poster templates can be used for research posters, in any scientific poster designs or as a conference posters.
You can also download an ODP poster version for LibreOffice and OpenOffice clicking here or other free presentation templates .
If you need any particular dimension that is not listed here, please kindly contact us recommending the new size.
Customizing Your Poster Presentations
Our 100% editable poster templates offer you a wide range of customization options. You can easily modify the content, include data charts and images, or replace the top-left logo with your brand’s identity. The footer, which contains our logo, notes, and comments, is also editable. Feel free to remove it if it doesn’t serve your presentation needs.
With just a few clicks, you can also adjust color schemes to match your brand or presentation theme. Our poster templates conform to most standard US and international poster sizes and are compatible with various PowerPoint versions. Only basic PowerPoint skills are required. You can create your own posters using PowerPoint or other presentation tools, like Google Slides or Canva. In our article how to make a poster in PowerPoint we explain a process to make a new poster.
Use Cases & Applications: How can you use the Poster Presentations?
Our poster templates cater to a wide range of poster presentations. From scientific research posters to conference posters, the sky is the limit.
Use Cases in Business
- Project Showcase: Poster presentations are an efficient way to share details about new projects or initiatives within your company. They can succinctly highlight objectives, milestones, and outcomes. You can download a project poster presentation template from this website.
- Marketing Campaigns: Poster presentations are also invaluable tools for marketing, displaying product information, promotional offers, or upcoming events in a visually appealing format. An A3 poster template for PowerPoint and Google Slides can help to accomplish it.
- Employee Training: They can be used to facilitate employee training, demonstrating workflows, protocols, or safety procedures in a user-friendly manner.
Use Cases in Academia
- Research Findings: Posters are commonly used to share research findings at academic conferences. They can effectively showcase methodologies, data, and conclusions. A creative research poster template is useful for this purpose. These poster presentations typically follow IMRaD format, which refers to a paper that is structured by four main sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (sometimes named Conclusion).
- Educational Material: In a classroom setting, poster presentations can be used to simplify complex topics, visually represent theories, or exhibit historical timelines.
Use Cases in Medical Field
- Medical Research: Poster presentations are vital in the medical field for sharing cutting-edge research, clinical trial results, and innovative medical procedures. Medical practitioners and researchers can utilize a medical research poster template to concisely present complex data and findings.
- Patient Education: Hospitals and clinics can use poster presentations to educate patients on various health conditions, preventative measures, and treatment options. A patient education poster template can help in creating informative and easy-to-understand posters.
- Conference and Symposium: Medical conferences and symposiums often feature poster sessions where professionals can share their work, network, and learn from each other. A medical conference poster template can provide a structured format to showcase research and case studies.
Use Cases in Arts and Design
- Art Exhibitions: Artists can use poster presentations to display their artwork and provide context or commentary. An art exhibition poster template can be tailored to complement the artwork and enhance the viewer’s experience.
- Design Portfolios: Designers can create poster presentations to showcase their portfolio of work to potential clients or employers. A design portfolio poster template can help in arranging works aesthetically and providing necessary project details.
- Event Promotion: For promoting arts and cultural events, poster presentations can be an effective medium. An event promotion poster template can help in creating eye-catching and informative posters to attract attendees.
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University Libraries
Creating an academic poster.
- Introduction to Academic Posters
- Fundamentals of Effective Poster Design
- Communicating Technical Data
- Review & Refine
- Finalize & Print
Creating an effective academic poster involves carefully considering several key elements to ensure clear and engaging communication. We focus on these five elements because they are the most significant and easiest to apply when designing an academic poster.
Clear Layout and Organization
How can you arrange your content to ensure the information flows logically and is easy to follow?
Organize your content in a clear, logical order.
Group related information together.
Use clear and distinct headings to separate different sections and guide the viewer through your poster.
Use numbering or arrows if linked content should be read in a particular order.
Utilize white space and ensure all elements are well-aligned and balanced to avoid clutter and enhance readability.
Concise and Informative Content
What are the most critical points of your research that must be included to convey your main message effectively?
Focus on the main points of your research, ensuring the essential information is easy to find and understand.
Combine text and visuals to convey your message effectively. Use bullet points or short sentences instead of long paragraphs.
Strike a balance by avoiding oversimplification (too little useful information) and overcomplication (too much information).
Ensure that the content is presented clearly and simply to enhance comprehension.
Effective Use of Visuals
How can you use diagrams, graphs, or flowcharts to simplify and visually convey complex information in your poster?
Use diagrams, graphs, or flowcharts to visually explain complex information.
Ensure every graphic has a clear purpose.
Identify a focal point to draw viewers in, whether it's a key diagram, flowchart, or a clear main title.
Ensure all images and graphics are high-resolution (at least 300 dpi) to avoid pixelation when printed.
Make sure all visuals are well-labeled and include legends where necessary to facilitate easy interpretation of the data.
Readable Typography
How will you choose and maintain consistent, clear fonts to ensure your poster is easily readable from different distances?
To ensure legibility at a distance, use around 70-100 pts for the main title, 40 pts for subheadings, and 24 pts for body text.
Aim for a word count between 300 to 800 words. 300 words allows for more graphics, while 800 words results in a text-heavy poster.
Keep it simple with no more than two fonts—typically one for titles and one for body text.
Choose clear, legible fonts and maintain consistency throughout the poster. Sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica are often preferred for readability.
Thoughtful Use of Color
How will you select a visually appealing and consistent color scheme to highlight important information and create visual interest?
Ensure there is sufficient contrast between the background and text to enhance readability.
Limit the number of different colors; a simple color palette can be very effective.
Avoid unnecessary and distracting background textures or decorations.
Examples of Posters Using the Elements of Poster Design
Free Editable Poster presentation Examples | EDrawMax Online . (n.d.). Edrawsoft. https://www.edrawmax.com/article/poster-presentation-examples.html
Shearer, D. (2022, April 14). How to make a conference poster | Postgraduate life at Surrey . https://blogs.surrey.ac.uk/postgraduate-student-experience/2022/04/14/how-to-make-a-conference-poster/
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- Last Updated: Aug 17, 2024 10:54 AM
- URL: https://guides.library.unt.edu/academicposter
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Blog Marketing 50+ Creative Poster Design Ideas Tips
50+ Creative Poster Design Ideas Tips
Written by: Ryan McCready May 03, 2023
Think about some of the most creative posters that you have seen throughout your life. I know that there are a handful that stick out in your brain.
Now, what makes all of those posters so memorable? Honestly, it takes a lot of things working in perfect harmony to create a poster.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to bring all of those elements together to come up with a creative poster idea.
But if you want to get a head start and not start from scratch, why not use a poster template to speed up the process?
Here are 55+ creative posters ideas to inspire you, so you can create your own.
52 poster design ideas to keep in mind
Before we start, here are some poster design tips you need to be aware of:
- Use a color overlay for a more understated poster
- Keep consistent margin widths
- Incorporate your product directly into your creative poster ideas
- Use directional cues like icons and illustrations to direct the eye to important information
- Design two complementary creative posters
- Group important information together to help it stand out
- Use accent colors in your minimalist designs
- Use hand-drawn illustrations in your poster design
- Go ahead and pick an EXTRA bold color palette
Now onto the complete list:
1. Mix bold complementary colors with a simple poster layout
Let’s be honest, this creative poster looks like it belongs on the wall of your favorite local boutique or coffee house. Maybe the one that knows you by name because you’re in there a little too often.
The designer pulled off this trendy look by combining a complementary color palette with a relatively simple layout. As you can see, the orange background really helps the off-white sections jump off the page. And the succulent, which is always trendy, adds a bit of interesting green to the poster background too.
Related : How to Apply the Right Layout To Your Poster
2. Start with an eye-catching poster background image
Most of the time your poster background image or graphic is going to dominate the design. It’s also going to be the first thing that a reader will see, so you need to make it count.
These days many people just slap a vague stock image on their poster and call it a day. Now I have a well-documented hatred of most stock photos , but with this event poster template , they absolutely nail it.
From the bold color palette to the way the image naturally divides the poster, to the modern font choice, it all comes together perfectly.
Honestly, it may be one of my favorite creative poster ideas in this article! And it hurts me a little to say this, but the stock photo is what makes it perfect.
Just so you know, some of our poster templates are free to use and some require a small monthly fee. Sign up is always free, as is access to Venngage’s online drag-and-drop editor.
3. Create the best motivational posters by using color overlays
The best motivational posters are simple and clear. They typically use an inspiring or breathtaking image, and pair it with a really bold message. However, sometimes the perfect image is very busy and colorful. When you add text it seems to just disappear into the image.
To solve this problem, you can apply a color overlay that’ll subdue your background photo. You can check out this motivational poster example to see how a color overlay works.
With a simple transparent layer, you can turn a vivid or colorful image into a reserved background in seconds.
Plus, the color overlay helps the text on your motivational poster jump out at the reader. You can also choose custom canvas prints of your posters if you want to stick them on the wall for a long time. This will give you a professional and durable display that will inspire you daily.
4. Use leading lines to direct the reader’s eyes to your creative poster
Leading lines direct the eye towards the focal point of an image. Using leading lines is a great way to compose a memorable picture.
This photography composition concept can also be used to create a memorable poster as well, like in the example above .
In this case, the lines of the buildings naturally direct the eye down the poster to the job listings.
Without those leading lines, readers might not even notice the job listings. And this company would miss out on some great employees.
5. Make your poster pop with a two-toned title
One of the quickest ways for a designer to upgrade their garage sale poster is to use a two-toned title.
Pick two contrasting colors that pop from the background.
This approach can instantly make any header eye-catching, as you can see in the poster example above. I
I’m guessing you know that our eyes are drawn to objects that are different from those around them. You can use this inherent trait to grab a reader’s attention rather quickly.
6. Pick a creative poster idea that reflects the theme
Making design choices that don’t fit the idea, theme, or topic of your creative poster is a common mistake new designers make.
Heck, it’s a mistake that I made in my early design days.
For example, since Europa is a moon off of Jupiter, it would need a sci-fi or futuristic theme.
A fun font and colorful palette would not have the desired effect. And frankly, it would look out of place on a poster about space.
7. Divide your poster layout in half to contrast “before” and “after”
A common marketing tactic is to show how your customers’ lives are before and after they buy your product.
Think about all the ads that you see on TV that show how your life will be better because of their product (even if they don’t always tell you what their product actually does.)
The same idea can be used while coming up with a creative poster idea.
In this poster example, the page is split in half to show the “before” and “after” effect of being an organ donor.
8. Look for creative ways to incorporate product shots into your poster design
Whoever created this product poster for Nest did an incredible job!
They flawlessly blended a three-dimensional product right into the flat poster design.
And best of all, it doesn’t look overly promotional, or even out of place.
Now, maybe you don’t have a product that can be inserted into a poster so effortlessly like this.
But you can use it as the background image, or even as the main focal point on your poster. All it takes is a little extra creativity, and you will be golden.
9. Combine multiple design influences for a truly creative poster idea
Now, I’ll admit that it took me a few viewings to see how amazing this poster is. But after I saw exactly what the designer was trying to say, I was sold.
The inspiration for this poster actually came from both the event, a night market, and the date it was being held on, the 4th Of July.
They then smashed those ideas together to create a killer poster. It has a vintage poster design feel, with the flag providing structure for the poster and then folding into an old school stall that you could find at the market. It’s perfect!
10. Create multiple versions of your creative poster
I don’t think anyone will argue the fact that most people have different tastes and preferences.
This is particularly true when it comes to design, and art as a whole.
One group of people may love your creative poster idea, but the other may hate it. Now without even meaning to, you have turned off a large portion of your potential audience.
Because of this vast pool of potential readers and their varied tastes, I would recommend creating a few different creative posters.
As you can see in the futuristic poster examples above, they designed 4 different posters for a single event.
This approach will hopefully ensure they appeal to a larger audience than they could with just one distinct poster example.
11. Always use high-quality images on your creative poster
If you’re planning on sharing your poster on social media or printing it out, be sure to use high-quality images .
In fact, always try to use high-quality images on all your posters. You really never know where they might be shared, or who will see them. It’s better to be safe than sorry!
Plus, readers are going to associate the images with your business from the beginning. If you use an odd or low-quality image on your poster, these same people will probably not want to work with your brand.
In this beautiful poster example, they definitely made the right choice with their featured image:
Not only does it fit the theme of the poster, but it will also look clear and professional on any screen.
There’s nothing more frustrating than putting a ton of effort into a poster, and finding out it looks bad on a large screen.
12. Make a creative poster design using icons
If you don’t want to include a photo or image on your poster, an icon collage is a great visual alternative.
I really like icon collages because you can get very specific with what icons you use . Especially because at Venngage, we have thousands of icons at your disposal!
In this sales poster example, the designer used a collection of clothing icons in the collage:
Each icon is different from the next, and it allows the brand to show that they have a ton of clothing on sale. With an image or photo, you might only get to include a few products if you’re lucky.
Plus because you can change the icon color, the collage can be used on other posters or design projects!
13. Upgrade a simple poster with bold shapes and patterns
Never use a raw stock photo. There are too many vague stock photos out there that do nothing to help your marketing collateral stand out.
This is a great rule of thumb when it comes to creating posters that succeed.
Yo u can start with a stock photo as your base, but you should make it your own before anyone sees it.
In this poster from Hami Miharu Matsunaga, they do just that.
All it takes is an eye-catching pattern and some bold colors to instantly turns a nondescript photo into an interesting event poster .
14. Organize your poster into blocks to give it structure
When designing a poster with lots of components, like an event poster with lots of names, sometimes you have more information than you know what to do with.
To help keep your poster design organized, divide the page into “block” sections, like in the concert poster example above.
The clean lines make it easier to scan the poster for important information!
Without these sections, you would be left with a mess of band names, and some annoyed fans.
So follow their lead and make sure you keep things well organized.
1 5. Create event posters for the day of the event as well
Most event poste rs advertise a certain event for many weeks or months in advance. I mean, almost all of the examples that we have featured in this roundup are like that.
However, you’re going to need posters on the day of the event as well.
For example, this poster would probably be used the day of the event to point out where the actual festivities are.
Others could lists rules, a schedule or something that helps the event attendees out during the day.
So don’t forget to create those kinds of posters before its too late!
16. Include a transparent shape to give the poster template depth
If you want to add some depth to your flat poster template , then this example is perfect for you.
The designer gave this poster extra depth by using a simple transparent shape.
With a strong background image and a bold color scheme, this creative poster idea will stand out from the pack.
I think that a solid shape would not have had the same appeal, and instead made the poster flat and nondescript.
But instead, the background image is able to filter through and give the poster some unique texture too.
17. Make handwritten fonts the design focus of your poster
As brands try to become more genuine and lifelike, handwritten fonts are still a trend.
They give each poster and design a bit of whimsy that other fonts don’t really have.
Take a minute to imagine how the example would feel if they used an ultra-modern font. I’m pretty confident that it would look out of place, and not have the same impact.
Especially if it was paired with a quote that can cause an emotional reaction, like in the poster template above.
18. Let the poster background image influence your design choices
Most of the time the poster background is, well, kinda fades into the background.
But it doesn’t have to, and can instead be the focal point of your poster.
In the hiring poster above, the background image actually set the tone for the whole poster.
From the font color to the poster structure, and even the way the text is oriented. And it all comes together to create a pretty unique poster.
19. Elevate your minimalist poster design with accent colors
I think, one of the bigger misconceptions in the design world is that minimalist posters should have no color.
However, minimalist design ideals focus on using the bare essentials to create something beautiful and functional. There’s no more, or no less used, just a perfect balance.
In this minimalist poster example, they do just that, with some accent colors to make it more eye-catching.
This minimalist poster design could’ve been a boring line drawing if they stuck to just one color. But the pops of bold color help make it far more striking.
20. Use a landscape page orientation for a different poster design
As you may have noticed, almost every poster we have featured (and most posters in general) share one thing in common: they are actually all vertically oriented.
If you want to stand out from all of the other posters in the world, try using a horizontal or landscape page orientation.
In the event poster example above, they do just that and it works very well.
21. Feature a single call-to-action on your poster
I’m guessing that if you’re creating a poster, you want a person to take an action after they read it.
In the marketing world, we call that a call-to-action, and you should have one on almost every poster that you create.
This call-to-action could tell people to come to your event at a certain time or ask for a follow on social media.
In the creative poster example above, their call to action tells readers to visit a website for more information about the event. This is a great way to engage with readers on a more interactive platform.
Just remember to only have one call to action, or you risk confusing your audience.
22. Incorporate unconventional borders for a modern poster design
I would recommend featuring a border on all your minimalist posters, like above. It will help give the most basic poster some much-needed structure.
This border actually helps direct your eye to the important information on the poster. It’s functional and gives the poster a sleek modern look.
23. Use hand-drawn illustrations to give your poster a playful feel
I’m a big fan of using hand-drawn illustrations for a lot of the same reasons I like hand-drawn fonts.
They both can add a bit of fun and whimsy to any poster. Plus, the icons can make the poster feel a lot more genuine, even if it’s created by a massive corporation.
If hand-drawn illustrations fit your brand , like in the example above, I would definitely use them as well. I can’t think of a better place than Maker Faire, which is filled with quirky creators, to use hand-drawn illustrations!
24. Don’t use the whole canvas for your poster design
Just because you have a large canvas to work with, it doesn’t mean you have to fill it up completely with content.
When you look at any professional poster, you’ll notice the effective use of white space. It’s a simple way to avoid a disorganized look.
This designer decided to take that idea to heart and included a ton of white space on their poster. As you can see, almost half of the poster is blank! However, this white space helps the main content stand out even more.
Without the open space, I don’t think the ticket theme would have been as interesting as well.
But in this poster example, it almost jumps off the paper to grab your attention.
25. Use a simple poster background that can easily be changed
In an attempt to stand out this year, some people will use very complicated poster backgrounds .
Or they might slap a somewhat related stock photo on their poster and call it a day.
Complicated poster backgrounds work for some types of events, but sometimes it’s better to keep it simple.
In this poster example, you can see that they used a simple flat background throughout the poster. As you can see, the information becomes the main focal point of the poster with this approach.
Best of all, with a flat background, you can easily change the color scheme of your poster to fit different situations.
You can also easily reuse the poster template for future events this way.
Using Venngage’s My Brand Kit , all you have to do is click once to add your brand colors to the poster.
With a second click, you can see a swap where the colors appear, like so:
26. Use gradient fills in your poster designs
Gradients are a simple way to add a bit of color or excitement to your poster background.
They are now super easy to use with Venngage. All it takes is a single click to add them to your poster.
But in this example, they decided to use gradients in a different way.
Instead of placing a gradient in the background, the designer added it to all of their shapes.
In combination with a simple white background, the gradients add a lot of depth to the simple shapes.
27. For event posters, make sure your design matches the event
One of my biggest pet peeves is when event posters don’t match the event they are promoting.
I find it more puzzling than intriguing when a book event poster looks like it’s promoting a dubstep concert.
Confusing your users from the start isn’t a great way to design a winning poster. So be sure to keep in mind what event you’re promoting throughout the whole design process.
In this retro party poster example, you can see that the design elements match the event perfectly.
From the colors to the patterns and even the main font, this poster looks like it came straight from the 1990s!
I also like that they added a CD icon to really increase the nostalgia.
28. Break your poster into different sections with boxes & borders
There really isn’t a rule for how much information you can include on a poster.
However, you need to make sure that this info is easy to consume, and that the info is actually relevant to the poster and useful to the reader.
One of the easiest ways to keep your poster organized is to use boxes and borders.
Now if you plan to include a ton of different information on your poster, try to emulate this poster example.
The designer actually broke this poster into 7 different sections using just a few lines and borders.
These borders make the poster a lot easier to read and navigate from one point to the next.
Without them, the information would all run together, which is never good!
29 . Create your own custom icon story
If you’re struggling to think of a creative poster idea, don’t worry icons are here to help! Because they are so versatile and plentiful I try to use them in all of my projects, especially posters.
As you can see in this conservation poster template, pollution-centric icons come together to form a dolphin from scratch.
All it takes is a few clicks .
Using icons to create a whole new story is powerful and will make people stop to learn more, especially if they are passionate about conservation or just love dolphins.
30. Use a consistent page margin width to avoid clutter
Inspirational posters are all about a compelling message that resonates with the reader.
It’s important for the message to be clear.
But in this inspirational poster example, there’s A LOT going on.
Multiple colors, fonts, words, and shapes come together to form a very interesting poster design. And there are hundreds of creative poster ideas out there just like this.
With so much going on, why does it still work so well?
The poster feels professional and organized because the designers used a consistent margin width around the text.
As you go from one line to another, your eye knows exactly where to look.
This is a great way to make the actual text just as compelling as the message.
So, if you’re thinking about taking a similar approach when making an inspirational poster on your laptop for graphic design or just want a creative look, I recommend using a consistent margin width .
31. Use icons to direct the eye to important information
We have already talked about using leading lines to direct the eye in the right direction in a previous example.
Well, this tip is similar: use icons to point to important information.
If the icons you select already look like arrows, like above, then you are made in the shade.
These pointing shapes are called “directional cues”. It doesn’t really matter where you look on this poster, the icons are pointing you towards the center.
32. Include a visual gag or pun, it never hurt anyone
If your creative poster idea can cause an emotional reaction, people are likely going to remember it.
You can achieve a positive reaction by not taking your poster design too seriously.
And secondly, by using a visual pun or gag, like in the informative poster above.
I know I’m going to remember this poster for weeks to come, mainly because it was so punny. I bet you will too.
33. Blend your topic into your font choices, or create your own
There are no rules out there that say you must use a premade font to bring your creative poster ideas to fruition.
Sometimes you need to create a font from scratch, and with our collection of icons, you can create do just that!
We have already seen how a designer used related icons to create a dolphin from scratch. You can use the same general idea to build your own custom font as well.
For example, in the event poster above , the designer actually uses musical graphics and icons to build an interesting font.
34. Use a solid background shape or border to make text pop
If you want to make text jump off your creative poster, follow the example above.
The designers use solid black blocks to make the title text stand out. It also shows the reader where they should look first, which is always a plus.
Additionally, this tactic can highlight a date, a website, or something important on your poster.
Just be sure to use this trick sparingly, or it loses its effectiveness.
35. Include clever design choices to stand out in this busy world
This creative poster looks like a mess of random shoes, right? Well, it is, from this angle.
But if you take a step back, you can clearly see that the shoes are actually spelling something out.
It’s almost like one of those magic picture books that dominated the 90s.
And this creative poster idea will definitely catch someone’s eye as they are walking by. It may actually cause them to do a double take and come back to it. If that’s not an effective poster, I don’t know what is!
36. Highlight an object that everyone will recognize
Creative posters that reveal their complexity over time will have a lasting impact on your audience.
For example, if you took a quick glance at this poster you would probably see a grail.
This object happens to be what they are searching for in this installment of Indiana Jones. Even the most casual fan, like myself, would recognize that imagery from afar.
But when you take a close look at the rest of the poster, you see the profiles of Indy and his father form the grail.
This a great way to feature various iconic objects that causal, and hardcore, fans will be drawn to.
And it happens to be a famous optical illusion!
37. Include a simple and memorable tagline
In this fast-paced world, you have to get your message out there quickly and efficiently.
That means sometimes the most straightforward posters are best.
For example, this designer created a very interesting poster by saying two things with a single phrase.
They were able to create a very unique and modern poster by keeping things simple.
They could have said both of those things separately on this poster, but the impact wouldn’t be the same. And it wouldn’t have been an interesting poster in the slightest!
38. Embrace negative space in your design
You don’t need to cover every single pixel of your graphic to create an interesting or creative poster.
It’s good design practice to leave some when creating graphics to allow your poster to breathe.
Especially if you’re trying to create a flat or minimalist poster, like above. As you can see in this example, the blank space actually helps the text pop off the page.
39. Make sure all the important details are in one spot
Searching for a creative poster for important details, like an event location or time, can be a pain.
If the key information isn’t easy to find, your poster won’t be doing its job effectively.
That’s why I recommend placing pertinent information in the same general area.
Things like the date, a website, or the event location should all be in a single spot. Usually, the header or footer is a safe spot for this info.
In this poster example from AAF Omaha, all of their key info is grouped together.
They use negative space to make the information stand out from the background.
40. Visualize your event schedule or timetable with a timeline
The designer for this poster decided to visualize the event’s schedule directly on the poster by using a timeline template.
They could have included a start and end time, like many other types of posters on this list.
But this makes it easy for readers to know if any events are happening simultaneously.
41. Use an infographic to tell a data-driven story
If you want to include some data or charts on your poster, I would recommend using an infographic as inspiration.
With an infographic, you can use graphs, figures, maps and charts to effectively tell a story. As you can see in the example above, they use all of these graphics in an interesting way.
All of these graphics come together to efficiently explain how Credilogic grew over the past decade.
From the timeline infographic that explains their origin story to the graph that shows their growth over the year, and even the logo history.
If they were wanting to introduce their company to the community with this infographic-like poster, I would say they succeeded.
42. Highlight an important piece of information with a contrasting font color
Sometimes all you need to do to grab someone’s attention is highlight a particular word or phrase. This phrase could be something like “Free”, “Act Now” or “50% Off.”
Or, in the case of this creative poster example, the word “Drink.” As you can see, this word is highlighted in a particular font color to make sure it jumps off the poster.
The designers know that people aren’t going to pass up the opportunity for free food and drinks, so they made sure readers can’t miss it.
43. Tell a story with images or icons, not words
It’s a well-known fact that your brain processes images a lot faster than text . And you can use this hack to make your creative poster a guaranteed knockout.
All you need is a few icons or graphics that can tell a quick story, like in the poster example above.
However, try to only use recognizable or simple icons to tell your story. Nothing too technical or out of right field, or your readers will end up confused.
I’m guessing that you were able to decipher that this minimalist poster was for a winter jazz concert pretty quickly. But if not, they added some explanatory text below the icons too.
44. Improve almost any photograph with a duotone
Duotones hit the graphic design world recently, and it seems to be sticking around for a while.
This style became very popular because it allows a designer to add bold and bright colors to any image.
If you’re looking for a bold poster background, a duotone is perfect, especially when you want to improve a stock photo or keep a consistent color palette throughout the poster.
45. Change the reader’s perspective, literally
You may need to change perspective if you’re having trouble thinking of a creative poster idea. Start by taking a new look at a very common topic and you will have a ton of great ideas in no time.
In this example from IQ Agency, they take that idea very literally and design a memorable poster.
Almost everyone knows the NYC skyline, that’s not unique. But when they flip the perspective and add some bold, partially obscured text, this poster becomes an instant classic.
46. Use related color and shapes to break down a complex schedule
If you’re going to include a lot of info on your creative poster, I would recommend breaking it down into consumable chunks.
The presentation is really up to you and depends on the amount of info you want to share. You can use color, shapes, or borders to keep things organized.
Or you could combine all of those design ideas like they did in the event poster example above.
Instead of just listing their event schedule on a blank piece of paper, the designers used color and shapes to beautifully connect it all.
47. Present text or titles in a unique way
Sometimes to get your message out there, you need to think outside of the box, especially when you’re designing a creative poster.
In this unique poster example, the designer decided to present the event title in an innovative way.
Instead of going the traditional route, they presented the text across multiple lines. Then they used random breaks in the words to form an interesting focal point.
It may take someone a few seconds to read this poser, but it will definitely stick with them long after the fact.
48. Upgrade a stock photo with flat icons, filters, and borders
One of my biggest design pet peeves is when people insert a stock image onto their graphic s . They don’t even take the time to add icons, borders or a simple color filter!
All of these things could have instantly upgraded the photo and made the graphics unique to their brand!
In this creative poster example, they used a simple border to give the image more structure and draw the eye in.
And then they added a flat pink shape to make the text really pop.
Overall, they created a very engaging poster without using any gimmicks that distract from the message.
49. Add a splash of vivid color to your minimalism
Vivid color palettes are one of the biggest graphic design trends this year.
Massive brands like Apple, Spotify and Google are adding them to their marketing and design arsenal.
You can use these bright colors to add a little something extra to your minimalist poster. In the poster above, the creators used a vivid gradient to catch the eye.
Plus it fits exceptionally well with the simple design used throughout the rest of the poster.
And this approach doesn’t abandon the minimalist ideals of using only what you need to get a point across.
50. Make your text pop with layers and depths
Bold text is one of this year’s biggest graphic design trends because this type of text will jump out and grab your attention.
It also looks amazing o n high-definition screens, so expect to see bold fonts all over your social media feeds this year.
If you want to take bold text to the next level, I recommend following Nike’s lead.
In this poster example, they separated their bold text into different layers and it looks incredible.
A poster example like this will definitely stand above the noise in real life and on social media.
51. Swap a letter with an icon or illustration
I have been a fan of this innovative poster example since the moment I saw it.
From the minimalist design to the patterns, I liked every part of it. Plus it promotes an important and potentially heavy topic in a fun way.
But in my opinion, the replacement of the letter “O” with an icon is the best part of this example.
With this swap, the designer wanted to make sure people knew that voting was a great way to make sure their voice is heard.
This simple design choice will ensure that their message is seen by a ton of people. I think it was a success because almost two years after its publication, people are still sharing this poster on social media.
52. Avoid using a boring background under your color filter
At this moment in time, there are millions of free images, stock photos and patterns in the world. With even more being added each day!
So why would you use a boring background image or pattern under your color filter? I know I wouldn’t.
Not sure exactly what I’m talking about? Check out this poster example, and you can see how powerful an interesting background image can be:
These flowers add so much color to the minimalist poster, all without distracting from the written content.
This poster is also a great example of a trend called colorful minimalism that I think will dominate 2019!
You made it to the end of our roundup of creative poster ideas! Great job!
And if you’re looking for a little more info about creating posters I would start here:
- How to Make a Poster in 10 Steps (2024 Poster Design Guide + Templates)
- 22 Event Poster Ideas, Backgrounds & Design Tips
- 21 Essential Human Resources Poster Examples
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This entire guide on how to design a research poster presentation is the perfect resource to help you with this step. Follow all the tips and guidelines and have an unforgettable poster presentation. Moving on, here's how to design a research poster presentation with PowerPoint Templates. Open a new project and size it to the standard 48 x 36 ...
Download the Sea Fishes Poster presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources.... Multi-purpose.
This free PowerPoint poster template is designed for a standard 4x4 foot poster presentation. This scientific poster template is a good size for limited available spaces without compromising room for content. This research poster template can be printed at the following sizes: 48x48 (Standard), 36x36, 24x24, 42x42.
To make your title design stand out from the crowd, use a bold font over a brightly colored background. You could also make use of geometric shapes and other graphic elements to attract the eye. Creating this kind of contrast in your poster title will attract attention. But it will also improve the legibility of your title, even for readers on ...
Medium poster: 18" x 24". Large posters: 24" x 36" or 27" x 39". Once you've decided on your poster size, set the dimensions in PowerPoint. To do this, open PowerPoint and navigate to the "Design" tab. In the "Customize" group, select "Slide Size." Select "Custom Slide Size" from the dropdown menu.
Easily edit any of these templates with Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, or another Microsoft 365 app, depending on the template you choose. Change up the text, font, colors, images, and other design elements, then download and print it yourself or send it to a print service. Even use these poster templates to create social media posts for ...
Stop spending hours resizing and aligning boxes on your poster. Design beautiful research posters in minutes with BioRender's Poster Builder. Experience quick and easy poster-making with this powerful tool, built by scientists for scientists. ... High quality export available in PDF, PNG, and JPG file formats for all your print and presentation ...
When in doubt, choose 1 single color (or shades of the same color) and combine it with black for text and white and light grey for backgrounds, boxes, and borders. Add a single pop of color to create focus where you want the audience to look, e.g. important keywords, arrows, and your main message.
Title is short and draws interest. Word count of about 300 to 800 words. Text is clear and to the point. Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read. Effective use of graphics, color and fonts. Consistent and clean layout. Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation.
The poster presentation format follow most standard US and international poster sizes and supports different versions of PowerPoint. Only basic PowerPoint skills are required. The poster templates can be used for research posters, in any scientific poster designs or as a conference posters.
Arrange the 4 P's of your strategy: your product, price, promotion and place. Choose a design that will mark your audience and look good in your selected place. Make your campaign details the focus of the poster. Add high-quality images of your product or service. Include a relevant call to action.
Aim for a word count between 300 to 800 words. 300 words allows for more graphics, while 800 words results in a text-heavy poster. Keep it simple with no more than two fonts—typically one for titles and one for body text. Choose clear, legible fonts and maintain consistency throughout the poster.
Before we start, here are some poster design tips you need to be aware of: Use a color overlay for a more understated poster. Keep consistent margin widths. Incorporate your product directly into your creative poster ideas. Use directional cues like icons and illustrations to direct the eye to important information.
Use an online poster maker to design stunning posters. Start a new project in the Visme dashboard and select the Printables tab. Click on the Posters icon and browse the available templates for events or wall art. Choose the template which best fits your vision. If you change your mind, the free poster maker will let you change to another ...
Design Phase: We will layout your content into a professional-looking poster, utilizing either your provided template or one from our curated selection. Turnaround Time. To accommodate your schedule, we offer three production timelines: Standard Service: 2 to 3 business days. Same-Day Service: Orders placed by 10 AM Pacific Time for urgent needs.
We have designed our templates for professional results and with the average PowerPoint user in mind. What you see here is a typical 36x48 research poster layout that includes the most common elements of a research poster layout. Other size layouts will look similar. If you have not made a research poster before use this layout as a general guide.
NOYA - Vertical PowerPoint Poster Template. Noya is a modern PowerPoint template that comes with more than 70 unique slide designs. The template includes lots of editable graphics, device mockups, editable shapes, image placeholders, and much more. It's available in US Letter and A4 sizes as well.
Follow this poster making tutorial in order or jump ahead to a section of your interest. Step #1: Identify the Purpose of Your Poster. Step #2: Choose a Poster Template. Step #3: Add in Your Text Content. Step #4: Add Photos and Graphics. Step #5: Customize Colors and Fonts. Step #6: Include a Call-to-Action.
Create stunning posters online with PosterMyWall, the free and easy poster maker. Choose from thousands of design templates, customize them with your own text and images, and print or share them in minutes. Whether you need a poster for an event, a business, a school, or a personal project, PosterMyWall has you covered.
Bring presentations to life with customizable PowerPoint design templates. Whether you're wowing with stats or putting your latest ideas on display, find a PowerPoint template that pops. ... or business with easily customizable poster templates. Find templates for all your promotion needs and make them uniquely yours in a flash. Explore poster ...
Organize and create a visually appealing display board, digital poster, or slide presentation that clearly communicates your experiment by including all necessary sections (question, hypothesis, variables, background research, etc.), using appropriate font sizes, titles, images, and charts or graphs.
Find Us. Undergraduate Research Peter T. Flawn Academic Center (FAC) Room 33 2304 Whitis Ave. Austin, Texas 78712 512-471-7152
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Even better, same-day pickup is usually available for custom posters up to 24 by 36 inches in size. Which sizes and materials are available for custom poster printing? Office Depot can produce custom posters in a variety of sizes, including impressively large poster printing dimensions, such as 36 by 48 inches and 40 by 60 inches.
c) Assist with the design of materials for COP29, including presentations, posters, and reports. d) Contribute to the development of infographics and multimedia content such as animations, short videos, and GIFs for use in reports and social media.