Creating Posters: Home

Creating an effective poster is a great skill to have -- you'll have to do so for certain courses, and you will likely use these skills in future education or jobs.

No matter what course or discipline you're in, here are some general guidelines for effective posters:

• Most posters use a three- (or sometimes four-) column style.
• The title usually runs across all three columns at the top
• Use a concise title that is easy to understand.
• Your writing style should be clear and to-the-point, but formal in tone.
• Think of your poster as a short story or outline version of your research.  It's there to help you direct your conversations with attendees, not to replace your conversations with them.
• Cite your sources in the correct style (APA, MLA, CSE, etc.) for your field.
• Consider using a QR code for your list of references, to allow viewers to easily access and save them.

Design Guidelines

• Use bullet points, tables, charts, and appropriate graphics to break up the text and illustrate your points.
• Use standard, easy-to-read fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri.
• Don't use too many different fonts.  Simplicity is key.
• Make your text as big as possible while still fitting all the information on your poster.  Really big.  Think 48 pt minimum for the body of your poster and 72 pt minimum for the title.  You want people to be able to read it from several feet away.
• Use professional, easy-to-read color choices.  Stick with dark (preferably black) text on a light (preferably white) background.  You may use one or two colors for accents.  Remember, your images and graphs will also have a spot of color in them.
• Avoid using a busy background or background image.

A Couple of Reminders

• Your professor may give you examples of previous posters.  There are also places on campus where older posters are displayed, especially in the first floor of the Manning Academic Center.
• The maximum size of a poster depends on the printer you're using. Check with your professor, department chair, or dean.
• You can get posters printed at facilities like Staples and the FedEx store (formerly Kinko's).  You may also be able to get them printed on campus, depending on which program you're in.

You can design posters in Microsoft PowerPoint by changing the size of the slide to the dimensions of your printed poster.  PowerPoint is installed on most campus computers and is available for both Windows and Mac.

You can also use Adobe Creative Suite products such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.

Make sure you find out what file format is accepted for printing your poster.  In some cases, you may need to export your finished poster as a .pdf.

Using graphics can be helpful on a poster because it breaks up the text and helps illustrate your points.  Make sure the images you use are free from royalty and copyright.  Below are some sites that offer royalty-free images.  Most of these are either in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license, which allows you to reuse images for free as long as you credit the original creator.