Design Your Poster

Contents of this Section

How to set up a PowerPoint file for poster design

What sections to include and what to put in them

Use background and color effectively

Leave space

Create legible text

Layout text and create image placeholders

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Creating text in PowerPoint

Changing the Font, Size, and text Attributes

Adjusting Line Spacing

How to set up a PowerPoint file for poster design

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QuickTime Video (3 min 40 sec; 12.7 MB)

What sections to include and what to put in them

Now that you've identified the points you wish to cover, you need to collect the relevant information for your poster.
Think about the best way to communicate that information to your reader. Different types of graphics communicate
different types of information. A photograph, for example, may offer a good resemblance to the original but is limited
to showing the external or surface view of an object. The message you wish to convey can be lost in the detail
whereas a diagram could present a clearly labeled cross-section.
Meet with your research mentor early in the design process. Share your content map and discuss how you plan to
communicate the ideas. Your mentor and other lab colleagues may have valuable poster design experience and may
even have images they are willing to share!

Divide your information into main sections and decide what goes in each section. For example:

Title

A title that describes your conclusion or question in non-technical terms

will attract more viewers to your poster

Introduction

A statement that gives a quick overview of your poster. Include relevant

background to provide a context for understanding the central question or
theme of your poster. Define acronyms if you use them, and avoid lab jargon.

Objectives, Aims,
Goals, or Problem

A concise statement of the goal, question, or problem. Include an hypothesis,

if appropriate.

Methods

A brief description, diagram, or flow chart representing each key process or

procedure used to test the hypothesis.

Results

Describe the data collected and the methods used to analyze the data.
Photographs, tables, or graphs should be as large as possible, easily
interpreted, and labeled with a caption or figure legend.

Conclusions

Provide a summary, discuss significance of results, and key conclusions. Do

the results support or not support the hypothesis?

References

Cite key publications in the text of your poster and list the references here.
Include sources of any images or other materials used in the poster.

Acknowledgements

Thank the individuals, programs, and funding sources that contributed to the
research.

Finally, organize the sections of your poster so that the information flows logically. Plan to use bold section
headings and arrange the poster so that the order of what to read is clear. Sketch out a rough layout of your plan
indicating the placement of graphics and text. This will help you organize your space and see whether you might
need additional graphics or text.

Design Tip

To make your message stand out and save space at the same time, experiment with
using a conclusion or statement in place of the traditional section heading. For
example, you might replace the heading "Results" with a heading that states the takehome message such as, "Transcription of XYZ is Light-Induced."
Accept the fact that a poster cannot present as much detail as a journal article can.

Use background and color effectively

Colors and backgrounds should be subtle. Color should highlight, separate, define and associate information. If it
begins to compete with your information for attention, then it is too strong. Color works best as a background
element, such as a field against which text is set, rather than as a foreground element itself. Colored text is often
harder to read than the same words in black. Just setting headings in color does not necessarily mean that they will
be more noticeable than the text surrounding them. Small text set in color is hardest to read of all.
Be aware that colors look different on your screen than they will in print. In general, a color will appear lighter on the
screen than in print. So, select a lighter color than you think you need for your background if you are using black text.

Design Tip

Avoid: dark backgrounds, busy patterns as backgrounds, and using too many colors.
Some of your audience may be color blind so make sure contrasts are high between
bars of graphs, lines on charts and backgrounds versus text. The most common form
of color blindness affects red and green.

Leave space
Space is the distance or area between or around things. White space provides a frame for your material and makes
the other components stand out. Too much white space and your viewer's eye will wander. Too little and the result is
confusion.
Space can be used to:

Give the eye a visual rest.

Create ties between elements

Highlight an element.

Put a lot of white space around something important to call attention to it.

Make a layout easy to follow.

Make type as legible as possible.

Design Tip

White space (the absence of text and graphics) is vital to graphic design. The key is
to add just enough white space so the eye knows where to go and can rest a bit when
it gets there.
You can control white space in the following location: margins, paragraph spacing,
spacing between lines of text, gutters (the space between columns), and surrounding
text and graphics.

Create legible text

Choose Appropriate Fonts and Font Sizes

Use common font types, such as Times New

Roman or Arial. If you use an unusual font, or a
non-postscript font, it can cause problems when
your poster is converted to a.pdf format for
printing.

Use the following guidelines, to make your

poster easy to read at a distance:
o

Title

Author

28-32 point

References & Acknowledgements

36-54 point bold

Main Text

36-42 point bold

Section Headings (Sub-titles)

90-150 point bo

18-28 point

30 point font size will accommodate 250 words

per square foot.

TEXT AND TITLES WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN

CAPITALS ARE HARDER TO READ

for ease of reading, nothing beats black text on

a light background.

Design Tip

Consider carefully whether to use paragraphs, lists, or graphical representations for

the different sections. Paragraphs are more effective at revealing the logic of
arguments. However, paragraphs on a poster are intimidating to read, especially
when they are long. Use vertical lists rather than long paragraphs. For the list to be
effective, limit the number of items (no more than four), and the length of any one
item to just a few lines.
Avoid: extremely long titles; excessive use of different fonts

Layout text and create image placeholders

Map out the sections of your poster using the PowerPoint file you created earlier. The example below uses gray-filled
boxes as placeholders for graphics and text. This will help you organize your space and determine if you need
additional illustrations or text.