Creating Research Posters

Before you start laying out your poster, take some time to think about your research. 

• Who is your audience?
  • If you're presenting at the W&J poster session, it's likely your audience may have no familiarity with your topic. If you're presenting at a professional conference you can assume some level of shared understanding with the attendees.
•  What is the big picture?
  • What should an attendee be able to take away from your poster just by looking at it for about 10 seconds?

Sections

• Let there be "white space". Leave room to breathe between sections and images on the poster. 
• Make sure that the sections on your poster follow a logical progression. Remember people are likely to read from left to right and from top to bottom. This progression can be disrupted using size and color to make other sections stand out first.
  • If you need to add arrows or number your sections to try to help people work through your posters' content you might want to reconsider your layout. 
• Common sections on a poster can be: title (including authors), introduction, materials, methods, results, conclusions, references, acknowledgments. Not every poster will have all of these sections and required sections can vary depending on your discipline. 
• Columns can help organize a poster. Typically there will be 3 or 4 columns. Make sure that your columns are even and that your content aligns. 

Images

• A poster is visual so aim to have at least 30-40% of your poster images, charts, or other visual elements.
• Include captions/credits for your visual elements. 
• Make sure that your images are of sufficient quality to print without becoming blurry. It is always better to insert your graphics from a file, rather than copy & pasting graphics from other sources. Try for an image with a resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi). 
• If you use images that you did not create, make sure that you are not infringing on another creator's copyright. You can avoid this by looking for images that are licensed as Creative Commons. Check out the tab in this guide for suggestions on where to look for Creative Commons materials or ask a librarian for help. 

Text

• Keep your poster to 800 words or less. Less is more when it comes to words on posters. If you have to make your font smaller to fit all your text, people will not read it. 
• Use a font that is easy to read, don't use any script or novelty fonts. Be consistent in your font choices. 
• For the title you want your font size to be 100+; section headings around 80; section text between 40-60; and references or acknowledgments can be the smallest, around 20. 

Accessibility Tips

In addition to the design tips above consider these additional guidelines to make your poster accessible to as many people as possible. 

• Avoid colors that are difficult for those with color blindness to discern. You can find some additional guidance on choosing colors here: https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/#%23D81B60-%231E88E5-%23FFC107-%23004D40.
• Make sure that the contrast between background color and text is sufficient enough to be readable. 
• Consider using patterns or labels on charts to differentiate results, rather than relying only on a different color. 
• Consider having a digital version of your poster available. You can provide users with a QR to scan to access it.

Logos & Branding

To access W&J logos and other branding information start with this My W&J page from the Office of Communication & Marketing: https://mywj.washjeff.edu/page/founded_here/office/communication-and-marketing. From here you can access the brand guidelines and downloadable files for the W&J logo as well as departmental logos. (W&J login credentials are required to access this resource).

Before saving the final version of your poster, here are some recommended steps:

• Run spell check and read over your poster very carefully for grammatical errors. As a bonus, ask a friend to read it and look for grammatical errors. 
• Ask a friend who is unfamiliar with your research to look at your poster and tell you if they can at least get an idea of what you did based on the title and introduction. These sections should be the most accessible parts of your poster.
• Consider booking a library study room and presenting your poster on the screen. Remember you've likely been working on your poster in an extremely zoomed out view. Things that look good at 20% size can look distorted at 100%.