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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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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 11, 2023 5:09 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/posters

• Feb 27, 2018
• 12 min read

How to Design an Award-Winning Scientific Conference Poster

Before we get started, I want you to think about three things that you know about scientific conference posters. Think hard now.

Done? Great! Now erase those ideas from your memory. F O R E V E R.

We need to start fresh.

The problem is that 90% of the scientific posters that you’ve seen at conferences and in

the corridors of your university are TERRIBLE. I mean VERY TERRIBLE!!! Therefore, any

ideas you might have about what a scientific poster should look like are probably, well. . . terrible. But it’s not your fault, and we’ll set things straight in this post, so hang tight!

First off, let’s make clear what a poster is NOT.

A poster is not a bottomless pit where you dump all of your data and technical lingo. Only carefully selected information and visuals should go into your poster. I know you have eight fancy 3D plots that you can’t wait to share with the world, but ask yourself, are they really necessary? Do you really need eight of them when just one would do the trick?

Now let’s talk about what a poster should be instead.

Above all, a poster should be a networking tool . The primary purpose of a poster is not to communicate every little detail of your fantastic research, but rather to attract

people’s attention and serve as a conversation starter. Think about the typical conference poster session; it’s at the end of the day, and there is often copious amounts of alcohol in the mix. Seriously, after a long day of presentations, no one wants to read walls of text as the wine kicks in. What they want is for you to share the story of your research and engage in informal conversation about it. Repeat after me, a poster is a conversation starter. And the poster is not going to do the talking for you.

Second, a poster is a communication tool. A poster should use visuals to draw people in from a distance. Then, as people step closer and begin reading it, go ahead and give the background information necessary so that they can put your work into context, understand what you have done, why you have done it, and come to realize its broader impact.

Does this ring a bell? It’s no coincidence that the key information you’d include in your poster is the same information that you’d find in any scientific abstract. And here’s the secret: a scientific poster is simply a visual abstract . It’s also known as a graphical abstract. A concise and visual summary of your research. Its purpose is to be accessible and to drive attention to your research.

If you’re the type of researcher who best learns by example, take some inspiration from some amazing posters made by scientists who have mastered the fundamentals!

As academics, we like to write using impossible words, passive tenses, and convoluted sentences. We believe this is the way it should be done and what makes us seem most intelligent. The reality is, this is a selfish way of writing and does not take the reader into account . So please, break this vicious cycle of selfish scientific writing and design your poster with the reader in mind from the start.

How? Let me show you.

Step 1 – Scripting

Before you consider opening PowerPoint, or any other design software, open Microsoft Word.

Any word processor will do, but make sure that it has the ability to track your word count and checks your spelling. The latter is particularly important, as I learned the hard way by missing an award because of a bloody typo!

Target audience . Ask yourself, who is my ideal audience for this poster? Is it other experts in your field, or perhaps the broader public? What is their level of understanding of the subject? This is an important question because if you put a bit of effort into making your poster understandable to the broader public, you automatically increase your potential audience and impact. Also consider that a poster written in plain English works with both experts and non-experts alike, while technical and complicated writing greatly limits your potential audience.

Bullet points. A poster should not look like a paper, therefore, bullet points are your friend. 200-word paragraphs on a poster would discourage even the most motivated, sober, and caffeinated conference attendant. Bullet points on the other hand are a lot less frightening. There is a trend among some academics to slap a solid 200-or-so word abstract right at the top of their posters. Let me set the record straight. This has to stop. Your whole poster is a VISUAL abstract, so it makes no sense whatsoever to put a solid block of text that no one is going to read at the top of your poster. Exception: If you’re ashamed of how terrible your data are and you don’t want people to look at your poster, then go for it, put that abstract at the top. It’ll do a wonderful job at keeping people at a safe distance!

Use sections with headers. Because we are writing with the reader in mind, we want to make the logical flow of the sections as easy as possible for the viewer to follow. My advice is to have large, easy-to-read and numbered sections that cover the main pillars of the story, which typically are:

1 – Background

2 – Questions / knowledge gap

3 – Methods (keep this to the bare minimum or skip it if you can)

4 – Results

5 – Conclusions

6 – References and acknowledgements (smaller at the bottom)

Less words. I know this is going to shock many of you, but you should keep your word count under 250 in total. Possibly <150 words. I’m serious. The harsh reality is that if your poster is wordy, people will ignore it. Less is definitely more.

Graphs. I know that you’re proud of your amazing graphs (especially those fancy multi-dimensional plots with lots of colours). Unfortunately, I have a bad news for you. You need to leave most of them out. You need to carefully select only the very essentials. One or two graphs is better than three or four, and certainly better than eight or nine! When selecting the graphs to display, also ask yourself who your audience is. This is important because if you are using your poster as an outreach tool for the general public, then there is no point in including complicated graphs that no one is going to understand. However, things are different if you are showing your poster exclusively to an audience of experts. In that case, it’s safe to assume your audience can read your graphs.

Step 2 – Concept

Here is where the fun starts. Grab a piece of paper, or open up your design software , and make a first draft. There’s definitely some logic involved in how you choose to blueprint your poster.

Layout and size. Vertical or horizontal? You better check with the conference organisers, as you don’t want to show up at the conference with a poster that doesn’t fit the panels. A0 (841 x 1189 mm or 33.1 x 46.8 inches) is a good standard size to start. Keep in mind that when you design posters, it’s always safer to downsize than to upsize, as upsizing a digital image based on a pixel grid will inevitably cause a loss of resolution.

Panels. How do we read, left to right or right to left? Top-down or bottom-up? It may seem obvious, but I always see posters that are visually confusing and don’t have a clear directional flow. Start with an enlarged and readable title right at the top, then create a simple layout of panels that make it easy for the viewer to navigate. Remember that we’re committed to keep the reader in mind, so use arrows and numbered headers to help them out.

Leave space at the edges. Notice the grey space in the images above? It’s important to leave some blank space around the edges for a couple of reasons. First, you don’t want to risk important information to be cut off when printing, and second, you don’t want your poster to feel cluttered. This blank space is also known as negative space, and we’re going to unpack this concept more in the next section.

You’re half-way there! If you’re finding this useful, we recommend our online course: How to Design an Award-Winning Scientific Poster. You can learn at your own pace and arm yourself with the tools, templates, skills and knowledge to create your own award-winning scientific posters. It includes 33 video lessons, 3 hours of learning, 8 templates & downloads and is an excellent investment for your career.

Step 3 – Design

Negative space. For some strange reason, many academics feel the need to cover every inch of their poster with text or images. This is the wrong idea! It’s bad because it makes it difficult for the viewer to find the relevant information and to rest their eye. Clear space, also known as negative space, is a super important design concept, one that you should use to your advantage. Get ready for it. . . 40% of your poster should be clear. I am serious!

Eye-catching visuals. Imagine you’re walking around a poster session, and you’re far enough away from the posters that you can’t read titles or graphs. What will compel you to walk towards a particular poster? It’ll likely be a recognisable image that grabs your attention. Without a big and recognisable image, your poster will look like a fuzzy wall of text and it will likely go unnoticed. Therefore, it’s smart to include one big visual that’s related to your research and has the ability to hook people in from a distance. Be it a rocket, a lion, or an octopus — what matters is that it’s there.

Colour. This should be common sense, yet still I often get my retina scarred by the most unbearable colour combinations on scientific posters. Choosing a colour scheme is more than just intuition - there’s logic involved too.

Use a limited number of colours, say three-to-five, and stick with them! Graphs included. My suggestion is that you have two or three shades of a primary colour of your choice, an accent colour that stands out, and a couple of text colours. In a colour scheme of this kind, you can use the accent colour to draw attention to where you want people to look. The important thing is that you use the accent colour in moderation. Let me show you what I mean.

See how the 87% and the dot points stand out? This is the effect you want to recreate on your own posters. Feel free to steal these colour schemes, and in case you need some more inspiration, Material Palette is a free tool that creates colour palettes for you based on two colours of your choice.

Background. I know you have that awesome photo you really want to include in the poster. Why not blow it up and use it as the background of the whole poster?

NO! Don’t do it! You’re not doing yourself or the viewer any favours. A photo used as a background is too distracting and makes it impossible to have negative space on your poster. It’s much better to leave the background white, grey, or filled with a light colour from your colour palette.

Fonts. Fonts and font sizes work a bit like colours. That is, the fewer you use, the better. My suggestion is to use only one or two different fonts. Boldface should be used on titles and headlines, while all the rest should be normal. When picking what fonts to use, play it safe. Stick with the classic Arial, Myriad Pro, and other familiar fonts and you can’t go wrong. I know you’re tempted to use that super-original font that you’ve just discovered, but please, spare us. In terms of font size, try 90 for the Title, 60 for the headlines, and 36 for the body text. And remember that your poster should not require a magnifying glass to be read, but rather it should be easily readable from a meter away. If you’re keen to learn more about the word of fonts, and what the heck ‘serif’ means, we’ve got you covered .

Contact information. It may seem strange, but a lot of people forget to write their contact information on their posters. You may have a stunning poster, but how are people going to contact you and offer you a postdoc if you’re not around and your email is not on the poster? Slap on a QR code to your Twitter profile or LinkedIn! Even better, put a few business cards or a miniature A4 version of the poster (with contact info) beside the poster for people to take. This will have you looking very professional!

Photo. Most people don’t even think about this, but it’s a good idea to put a photo of you in one of the lower corners of your poster near your contact info. This is good practice as it makes the poster more human and even allows people to identify you and, if you’re lucky, buy you a drink because you impressed them with such a stunning poster. Hey, you never know.

Resources. You’re probably not an artist, so where can you source quality visuals to put on your poster? Well, you can hire a professional scientific illustrator, or you can utilise one of the plenty free resources on the web. If you’re in the environmental sciences, the IAN image library is a great free library of graphics. Another great website to find free illustrations and icons is Freepik . Happy browsing! Though if you feel like getting in touch with your creative side, we’ve got a handy guide for making some simple scientific icons and diagrams.

Software. Some of you may be thinking that to make great posters you need great (and expensive) software. Wrong! All you really need is Microsoft PowerPoint and the principles contained in this blog post. Feeling like trying something more powerful? We’ve put together an extensive list of free and paid software recommendations for not only making posters, but for also learning the foundations of graphic design. But if you’re in the market for a quick and FREE solution, check out Canva . Then if you’re really up for a challenge, use Affinity Designer , Adobe Illustrator or Indesign . However, be ready for a steep learning curve and a substantial investment on these latter options. On the bright side, Adobe always has significant educational discounts for students and university staff.

Step 4 – Getting your poster ready for print.

Get feedback. You’ve designed your masterpiece. Awesome! Congratulations! Now it’s time to get feedback from your supervisor and/or colleagues before printing it. Ask them to proofread it too. And remember that people are busy, so do this well in advance, as printing often takes longer than you’d imagine.

Dummy. Before spending money printing your poster, you really want to make a dummy as a final check. Print your poster A4, or even better A3 size if you can, and triple check that important information isn’t too close to the margins. You’re likely going to put your picture in a corner, so you want to ensure your face isn’t going to get cut in half!

Colour profile. If you designed your poster with professional software, you’ll have the ability to control the colour profile. Nothing complicated, there are two options: RGB and CMYK. The first one is for digital use, and the second one is for printing — pick the second one. That’s all you need to know.

Resolution. If you designed your poster big enough from the start (e.g. A0), you should be alright. As a rule of thumb, your resolution for high-quality printing posters and images should be around 300 dpi (dots per inch).

Where to print. You have many options, from the big office supplies stores like Officeworks , to the small print shops around campus. Print time varies from place to place, so be sure to plan this ahead of time.

Paper. Shiny things are pretty, but it’s better to avoid shiny and glossy papers when it comes to posters, as they can create annoying reflections. Matte papers are best. But paper isn’t the only option these days, some stores can even print your poster on canvas or cloth.

Tubes and foldable posters. The most common is to print your poster on paper which fits into a cardboard tube. This is fine if you don’t need to take you poster on a flight, but have you considered that the tube might exceed the standard carry-on size limit? There is a solution! Some stores like Officeworks can print your poster on soft cloth materials that you can fold into your suitcase! And in case your poster gets a little wrinkly, all you need to do is to iron it. I tried this and I was very impressed by the print quality. The colours looked great!

Conference got cancelled? And it’s now online? We completely understand the frustration of having to cancel your travel plans to that amazing conference in the Swiss Alps. While we can’t solve the travelling part, your poster can still make the trip! We’re now living in an internet-native society, so having your poster on the world wide web should be a no-brainer. We call these ePosters. Check out how to convert your poster to this exciting new format. But for argument’s sake let’s hope your conference stays in person, because who would want to miss out on the Alps?

Oh, and one last thing. Remember when I said that a poster is a conversation starter? It’s true, so you need to prepare and sharpen your pitch! Practice walking people through your poster in about a minute, and then start a conversation with them. How? Asking them what they work on is a good start. The secret to a good conversation is showing interest and listening. People love to talk about themselves and their research, so let them talk! It’s as easy as that.

This was a long post with lots of information, so I’m impressed you made it this far! 

But, we’ve only just scratched the surface.

To properly cover this topic, we’ve developed a whole online course: How to Design an Award-Winning Scientific Poster. You can learn at your own pace and arm yourself with the tools, templates, skills and knowledge to create your own award-winning scientific posters. We’ve had excellent feedback on the 33 video lessons, 3 hours of learning and 8 templates & downloads included - so we’re confident that you’ll love it too.

Haven’t got the time to make your own Award-Winning poster?

We completely understand that learning is a huge time commitment, especially for busy researchers. We’ve been there and totally sympathise. But don’t fret, you still have another award-winning option we KNOW you'll love.

Animate Your Science now has their very own line of scientific poster templates! These are perfect for those who really need to get started on their poster for next week’s conference (you know who you are 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏾‍♂️), without the fuss of making it from scratch.

Lovingly handcrafted by our creative experts, these templates are downloadable across 4 different file formats, include 50 science icons, feature 8 unique colour schemes, and include our specially selected list of fonts to match your aesthetic.

Plug and play, and try them out today!

Until next time!

Dr Tullio Rossi

Juan Miguel Balbin

#scicomm #poster #science

Related Posts

How to select the best images for your scientific poster

How to write engaging headings to make your scientific poster pop!

How to effectively incorporate citations into your scientific poster

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Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference

A scientific poster is a visual presentation that summarises your research findings and is typically displayed at conferences or academic events. Presenting one can be intimidating, but it's a valuable opportunity for feedback and confidence-building. Check out our top 9 top tips for successfully presenting your poster at a scientific conference.

Be welcoming

You should do your best to stand at your poster for the entirety of the conference poster session. If you do need to leave your poster for any reason, ensure you include your email address on it, so you can be contacted by conference attendees who may read your poster while you are not there. Read more tips for making your poster stand out here.

To make everyone feel welcome, stand to the side of your poster. This will make it easy for your potential audience to move closer and see the whole thing.

Think of your poster as a conversation starter. Smile and say hello to everyone who walks past and looks at you or your poster. Invite them to read more and, if they seem interested, ask if they would like you to talk them through it or if they have any questions.

Engage your audience

Remember to be enthusiastic - your research is exciting! Even towards the end of the poster session, when your energy levels may be lower, it is important to remain enthusiastic. If it is clear you find your work interesting, your audience are more likely to as well!

As you are presenting your poster, point to relevant parts of the poster so that people can follow as your talk through it. Try to avoid putting your hands in your pockets or behind your back.

Remember to also keep looking back at the audience, to keep them engaged and feeling involved in the presentation.

If you are already presenting your research to someone or a small group and someone else walks up, acknowledge them by making eye contact with them and smiling. Once you have finished with your initial visitors ask the newcomer if there was anything they missed that they would like a further explanation of, or whether they have any questions.

The most important aspect of presenting a poster at a conference is to make the most out of the opportunity you’ve been given. Who knows what might become of an interaction that you have in front of that notice board?

Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference: Engage your audience

The “elevator” pitch

First impressions really count in poster presentations. To pique the interest of your potential audience you should have a very short synopsis (maximum three sentences and no longer than two minutes) of your research prepared, which contains three vital bits of information:

• What is your research topic?
• What have you found?
• Why is that important?

The aim here is to get your audience hooked and wanting further details. Keep the bigger picture in mind, as the audience first needs the background info to then get excited about the small details of your research. Make sure your pitch is punchy, intriguing and relevant.

Creating a story

Once you’ve reeled in your audience and they are eager to learn more, it’s time to build the narrative of your research. Like all great stories your research needs a beginning, a middle and an end. Aim for this to be 10 minutes long, or less.

The introduction should set the scene and introduce the main characters:

• What is the necessary background information about your research topic that the audience must know?
• How did this lead you to your research question, what were you hoping to find out and why?
• Who are the main characters (e.g. a disease, a drug, a cell type, a brain region, a technique)? What are the relevant parts of their “characteristics” to the story?

The middle section is the adventure, it answers:

• How did you get from your research question to your conclusion? Why did you choose to take that route?
• What did you find on your way? Were there any interesting twists to your research?

The final section is the conclusion to the story:

• What is the ultimate consequence of your journey? What does this mean for your characters?
• Is this really the end of the adventure or are there plenty more adventures still to come? What might they look like?

Remember: You are the narrator; it is up to you as the story teller to make the content both compelling and exciting. Attendees are not all experts in your field.; if you are unsure how familiar your audience is with your subject area, ask them.

Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference: Create a story

The importance of practice

Presenting your poster is ultimately a form of performance. In performances, whether they involve acting, music, sport or presenting, practice is a major factor in success. After all, however much of a cliché it is: practice makes perfect. Rehearse what you will say and practice presenting on your friends and family. Once you begin speaking at your poster session you will be pleased that you spent time preparing and practising.

Before the poster session starts make sure that you:

• Understand exactly what all the figures on the poster show, that you can explain them fully and know their full implications.
• Have your elevator pitch memorised
• Know all the key points to your research story without referring to written notes
• Are ready to answer likely questions with confidence, and know how to deal with difficult questions that you might not be able to answer fully.

Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference: Practice, practice, practice

Check the audience's understanding

Ask members of the audience whether you have been clear or if you should go into more detail, rather than asking if they understand, as this could make them feel stupid or ignorant.

For example, say something like “Have I been clear enough” or “should I go into more detail about……?” instead of “do you understand how this works?”

The handout

There are pros and cons to having a handout with additional supporting materials or key information from your poster. You must decide for yourself if it will be of benefit to you depending on several factors including:

• What is the purpose of your poster?
• What are you hoping to achieve with your presentation?
• Will it enhance your audience’s engagement with your research or not?

The major positive outcome of a handout is that gives your audience something to take away with them to remind them about you, your research and why they were interested in it. It also gives them a way to get in touch with you should they have further questions.

The main negative is that some people who may be interested and could benefit from speaking to you about your poster will take the leaflet, read it (or not) and never engage with your research again. It is an easy way for them to avoid talking to you, for whatever reason that may be.

If you decide to go ahead with a handout there are several items that should be included:

• The project title
• Your name and affiliation
• Your professional email address (and phone number if your happy for people to contact you that way)
• The key information from your poster (including a link to the relevant paper if it has already been published.
• Any supporting materials not included on the poster that may be of help.

Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference: The handout

Expand your network

Look for opportunities to exchange contact information. If someone is particularly interested in your poster and wants to know all the details of your research, it may be better to suggest meeting them for a coffee after the poster session, or arranging another time for further discussions. This will ensure that other potential audience members don’t get bored and wander off without talking to you because they have been waiting too long.

Exchanging contact information and having further discussions can be a great way to expand your network and find potential collaborators for the future.

Tips for presenting your scientific poster at a conference: Expand your network

Dealing with feedback

It is important to welcome feedback, be prepared for discussion and not to be too defensive in the face of criticism.

If someone asks you a question or makes a comment that you don’t think is relevant, ask them to explain the relevance of their comment. They may have stumbled across something that you haven’t thought of because of their fresh perspective on the topic, or they might just not understand your research. Also, a negative comment or question might not actually be a criticism, but a genuine desire to understand why you’ve done something so they can fully interpret the poster. It is unlikely that someone has visited your poster to be vindictive, and if they have it is important not to engage them, shrug off their comments and move on to the next person who is genuinely interested.

Remember to thank the audience for listening and thank them for their feedback. People who have visited your poster could potentially be employers or colleagues in the future.

You got this!

In summary, presenting your poster at a conference is a chance to showcase your research, receive feedback, and connect with peers. Embrace the opportunity, be welcoming and enthusiastic, and enjoy the experience of sharing your work with others.

Neurowire blog posts

How to make your scientific posters stand out

Less is more: Advice for keeping your poster concise

10 tips for presenting your poster online at a virtual conference

How to get the most out of a scientific conference

9 simple and effective public speaking tips for scientists

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Conference attendees will look at your poster only briefly, so a clear presentation is crucial

A scientific poster is an illustrated abstract of research that is displayed at meetings and conferences. A poster is a good way of presenting your information because it can reach a large audience, including people who might not be in your field. It is also a useful step towards publishing your research. Some conferences publish poster abstracts, which then count as publications in their own right.

A successful poster captures the viewer’s attention and communicates the key points clearly and succinctly. One author reviewed 142 posters at a national meeting and found that 33% were cluttered or sloppy, 22% had fonts that were too small to be easily read, and 38% had research objectives that could not be located in a one minute review. 1 Avoiding these mistakes is important to ensure your poster has a positive impact.

Where do I start?

If you have completed a project, you will need to research the right meeting or conference to submit your abstract to, if you have not done so already. You might need to ask your supervisor or consultants in the field of your topic for information about relevant conferences at which you can present your work.

You will usually be asked to submit an abstract online. The submission guidelines on the website should guide you on how to do this, as well as provide other valuable information such as formatting instructions and deadlines. Your abstract should state why your work is important, the specific objective or objectives, a brief but clear explanation of the methods, a summary of the main results, and the conclusions. I would not recommend adding the abstract to your poster unless this was stated in the conference guidelines because a poster is already a succinct description of your work; use it as an outline for your poster.

Follow submission guidelines carefully because they differ among meetings. Start putting your poster together early to avoid the stress of last minute printing queues.

Designing the poster

According to the 10-10 rule, attendees spend only 10 seconds scanning posters as they stroll by from a distance of 10 feet. 2 Your poster should be well laid out, with a visual representation preferable to large chunks of text. Diagrams, tables, and photographs aid readability and attract people. Guide the viewers’s eyes from one frame to another in a logical fashion from beginning to end. Set up this pattern via a columnar format, so the viewer reads vertically first, from top to bottom, moving across the columns from left to right. ⇓

An example of a poster. Using information from www.postersession.com

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Text and font

It’s important to make the writing in your poster clear and easily understandable—remember that readers won’t give it much time. Use plain language and write in the active voice (“We did this,” rather than, “This was done.”) Avoid jargon and acronyms. Use simple language and short sentences. Edit ruthlessly. If it’s not relevant to your message, remove it.

Avoid using uppercase text for more than one sentence because it becomes difficult to read. Keep text to a minimum. Whenever possible, use bulleted text rather than blocks of sentences and leave blank space around the text and throughout the poster.

Use sans serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica, or fonts such as Times or Times New Roman, which are generally considered to help legibility for posters. If you want a different look, consider Baskerville, Century Schoolbook, or Palatino. The font should be consistent throughout the poster and text should be legible 5 to 6 feet away. Use at least 85 point for the title, 56 point for the authors’ names, 36-44 point for subheadings, 24-34 point for text in the main body, and 18 point for captions.

Use colour to attract attention, organise, and emphasise, but don’t overdo it. Use a maximum of two or three colours and consider people who have problems differentiating colours. One of the most common forms of colour blindness is an inability to tell green from red. Black type on a white background is standard practice, and patterned backgrounds should be used with caution.

Microsoft Powerpoint is easy to use and most people have access to it. Lay your poster out on a single slide. There are several other programs that can be used to design a poster, such as QuarkXPress, 3 InDesign, 4 LaTeX, 5 and Scribus (a free download). 6 These programs allow control of text wrapping around images and text flow among associated text blocks. One piece of software specifically targets the scientific poster market: PosterGenius. 7

The title is most effective when it refers to its overall “take home message.” It should include the scope of the investigation, the study design, and the goal. In general the title should highlight your subject matter, but need not state all your conclusions. It should be about 10-12 words long and the font size should be large, 85 point. If things don’t fit, shorten the title; don’t reduce the typesize. And remember, titles that are in uppercase lettering are hard to read.

The author who was involved most is listed first and the most senior author is listed last. Some posters will have the addresses of the institution to which the authors are affiliated.

Break up your poster into sections, much like a scientific article. Label all the sections with titles: introduction, methods, results, conclusion, references, and acknowledgements.

Introduction

Write a few brief sentences to identify what is known about the topic, why you did the research, and the aim or aims of your work. This section can also include your hypotheses, which usually go at the end of the introduction.

Explain what you did. For a study involving people, you should explicitly state whether the study was retrospective or prospective, and whether there was randomisation. Your data analysis and statistics used should also be described, including what P value you chose to indicate significant differences.

Select the most important results that support your message. Images and graphs say more than words. Tables and figures should be used to illustrate your study’s results, and they should be clear, self explanatory, and uncomplicated. They should be numbered, and referred to by number in the text—for example, “see figure 1”). Make sure figures have a title and a legend. Keep text to a minimum. Graphs and charts should have an appropriate scale and labelled axes. Orient text for graphs horizontally, including labels for vertical axes.

Write short, clear statements explaining the main outcomes of the study and why your results are interesting or important. You can also suggest future directions for research that build on your current study.

References should be limited to five, and the font size should be smaller than the poster text. Check on the organisation’s website for formatting instructions.

Acknowledgements

Write up a short acknowledgement section to thank those who helped you to complete your research, such as your research group or funding source. You should disclose any conflicts of interests that might exist.

Practicalities

Find out if the library based at your hospital site has the facilities to print your poster. Alternatively, you could upload your poster onto an internet site that will print and deliver the poster to you. Some conferences print posters on site so that you can collect them when you arrive.

If you do upload your poster online, make sure you set the dimensions on the file to match those in the conference guidelines. If you are travelling with your poster, make sure it is packaged in a plastic tube to protect the paper from getting damaged. If you are travelling by air, you should inform the staff at the check-in desk that you have extra hand luggage so that you do not have any problems taking your poster onto the aircraft.

Presenting the poster

When someone stops to look, you should be able to introduce your poster in 10 seconds and that person should be able to assimilate all of the information and discuss it with you in 10 minutes. 2 Some conferences will allocate time for you to present your poster to a small group of colleagues who also have posters in the same category as you. Check the conference website for details.

Place a note on your poster board listing the times you will be available by the board for those who would like to discuss the poster outside the formal presentation time. Prepare mini sized poster handouts or handouts of the key points for participants to take away. Make it easy for a conference attendee to contact you afterwards. Have your contact details clearly displayed on your poster and handouts. Posters are a great way to gain feedback from your colleagues and for networking and collaborating, and this should support you in writing up your research for publication.

Websites with examples of scientific posters

http://phdposters.com/gallery.php

http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/ExamplePosters.html

http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/posters.html

Roper L. Attending professional conferences. Student BMJ 2012;20:e3962.

Originally published as: Student BMJ 2013;21:f297

Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned, not externally peer reviewed.

• ↵ Hess GR, Tosney KW, Liegel LH. Creating effective poster presentations: AMEE guide no. 40. Med Teach 2009 ; 31 : 319 -21. OpenUrl PubMed
• ↵ Boullata JI, Mancuso CE. A “how-to” guide in preparing abstracts and poster presentations. Nutr Clin Pract 2007 ; 22 : 641 -6. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
• ↵ QuarkXPress. http://www.quark.com/ .
• ↵ InDesign. http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign.html .
• ↵ LaTeX. http://www.latex-project.org/ .
• ↵ Scribus. http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus .
• ↵ PosterGenius. http://www.postergenius.com/cms/index.php .

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iPosters and Betterposter: How to create a conference poster that people want to read

Download free templates, or make the switch to digital-only.

Marc J. Kuchner

Researchers meet and share their research in the poster hall at the AGU Fall Meeting. Credit: Gary Wagner Photos (garywagnerphotos.com)

6 February 2020

Gary Wagner Photos (garywagnerphotos.com)

Researchers meet and share their research in the poster hall at the AGU Fall Meeting.

A few years ago, presenting a poster at a scientific conference inevitably meant battling with thumbtacks, rubber bands, and an unwieldly sail of paper with little power to inspire. Now researchers are increasingly opting for digital posters and templated designs that highlight – rather than obscure – their key findings.

I recently attended the 2019 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, where 17,909 scientific posters were displayed over the course of a week. Many of these posters were visually arresting and cleverly constructed. And some were entirely online.

Since 2017, the AGU has been inviting presenters to submit digital poster ideas. Known as iPosters, they can support videos and animations, and are displayed on giant, interactive touch-screens.

That year, 117 iPoster submissions were approved for display at the conference. In 2018, that number had jumped to 775 iPosters, and last year, there were 995.

“The audience is jazzed about them,” says AGU executive program manager, Erik Hankin. “There’s an excitement around the technology and how it can overcome the limitations of a paper poster.”

The digital poster’s advantages go far beyond not having to lug around a 40-inch cardboard tube. Presenters can easily make last-minute changes to the content, and they can be instantly converted to other digital formats so they can be shared or uploaded to a website.

“I like not having to deal with the university printing office or worry about leaving it on the train,” says Leah Wood, a PhD student from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “And I think it’s more engaging.”

PhD student Leah Wood, explaining her digital poster at this winter’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Credit: Marc Kuchner

The AGU asked iPoster presenters to give brief talks about their research (called eLightning talks), and those were a hit as well.

“I think it’s the best of both worlds between giving an oral presentation and a poster presentation,” says Wood. “These three-minute talks are just right to give an elevator pitch and encourage people to come and play with the poster.”

Paper posters aren’t done yet

The downside of running a digital poster session is that it costs more than a conventional poster session, and someone has to foot the bill.

Conference organizers pay aMuze Interactive, a US- and Sweden-based company, for the use of proprietary iPoster software, and often a second company to truck in the special monitors and display hardware.

Some conferences can charge as much as $1,000 extra to participants who present digital posters to cover these expenses.

If that cost precludes you from going digital, progress has touched the paper side of the poster hall, too.

We’ve also seen improvements in the design of scientific posters. In 2019, Mike Morrison, a PhD student in psychology at Michigan State University, created a viral video calling out the inadequacy of conventional posters and introducing his own free downloadable poster templates called betterposters .

Morrison’s betterposter design includes small portraits of each author so conference-goers can recognize their faces in a crowd. They also include QR codes that can be scanned to bring up the relevant paper and other supplementary material on a user’s smartphone.

But the hallmark of the betterposter is a big dark square, smack in the middle of the poster, containing a single sentence that states the primary result of the research. It’s written so large that it’s impossible for conference-goers not to read it as they walk by.

my first attempt at a #betterposter come find out what happens! #ELSO2019 pic.twitter.com/NxfgQBMhEE — Brendan Riordan (@concernecus) September 14, 2019

@drdavidliew presents his poster #2685 #ACRbest #ACR19 @RheumNow come check out the Australian Experience of TA bx. pic.twitter.com/quQrEhv8x3 — Dr. Rachel Tate (@uptoTate) November 12, 2019

My colleague, Petr Pokorny, a planetary science postdoc from the Catholic University of America in Washington and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, tried using a betterposter template for the first time at the 2019 AGU meeting.

“It was a huge success. I got about 100 people stopping to read the poster and take pictures of it,” says Pokorny. “And it was a pretty dead part of the room.”

Petr Pokorny’s betterposter conference poster. (Kuchner is a co-author on the paper.) Credit: Marc Kuchner

Learn from the best

My hope for the future of conference posters is to see the aMuze iPoster templates incorporate some of the clever elements of the betterposter concept.

Although the digital posters I saw last year were easy enough to interact with, I often found myself struggling to understand the main point of the research being presented.

The betterposter templates are designed to put the “so what?” factor at the front and centre of the presentation – quite literally – which often solves this problem.

Here are some of my favourites that have been posted to Twitter:

@ghs_org Health Sciences Center Research Showcase today - lots of great feedback on our #betterposter design! @Laura_MPH pic.twitter.com/ngHq8PAc6t — Jacqueline Forrester (@jacforrester) April 12, 2019

Presenting research at @metals_in in Paris this week! Got creative with this one following some inspiration from @mikemorrison . *Note the skull decorated with orbitals to represent cytotoxicity! #CHEMISTRY #betterposter #Paris pic.twitter.com/HhgmfSIJL6 — Miles S Capper (@CapperMiles) November 15, 2019

Giving the #betterposter template a go at #NAPCRG2019 and have caught some eyeballs. Success 🤷🏻‍♀️ Come learn about primary care patient volume and quality of care for complex patients with me 😊 pic.twitter.com/ZIyVnbHdCI — Natasha Lane (@NatashaErinLane) November 19, 2019

Thank you #IPOS2019 for the opportunity to present my research on #symptom perception in #AYAcancer survivors today. My first #betterposter design was seemingly a success :) pic.twitter.com/9qgFcojP7W — Lauren Heathcote, PhD (@LCHeathcote) September 24, 2019

Search the #betterposter hashtag on Twitter to see more examples.

And to avoid that crushing feeling that results from unfurling a crinkled poster, you can also order a cloth fabric poster at makesigns.com or postersmith.com .

Marc J. Kuchner is an astrophysicist and the author of Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times. Photo by Gary Wagner Photos .

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Poster Presentations

• Size, Layout, and Text

Elements of a Poster

Change size in powerpoint, using the ruler, grid, and guides in powerpoint, more powerpoint training, template resources, font choice, text alignment.

• Colors and Images

Your poster should include these elements:

• Author(s), with affiliations and emails

If your poster is a representation of a research study, you will want to include the following sections:

• Introduction or objective
• Conclusions and/or discussion
• Acknowledgements

If your poster is a representation of an event or other kind of project, you may want to forego formal abstract sections in favor of the 5 Ws:

• Who (introduce the author, organization, or community)
• What (what did you do? how did you do it?)
• Where (where did you do it?)
• When (when did it take place?)
• Why (what are the outcomes, implications, or future possibilities?)

To change the size in Powerpoint:

• Go to the Design tab and choose "Slide Size" (it's on the right size of the ribbon)
• Choose "Custom Slide Size"
• Change "Slides sized for:" to "Custom"
• Fill in your desired width and height. 

Click the View tab to see checkboxes that will allow you to turn on the Ruler, Grid, and Guides (click the image below to see a screenshot).

Ruler : Allows you to see the dimensions of your slide. You'll see a vertical and horizontal ruler.

Grid : By default, the gridlines are 1 inch apart. Right click in white space of your poster to get more options for spacing. This enables precise alignment.

Guides : By default, you'll get one horizontal and one vertical guide placed in the center of your poster. Right click on a guide to add more guidelines, or to delete one. You can use Guides to invisibly define columns of your poster, margins, and more. This gives you manual control, alternatively, you can use Smart Guides (see below).

Smart Guides : Powerpoint has a built-in system for showing you alignment as you move objects around. The video below demonstrates what Smart Guides look like.

Once you've got your slide layout set, you'll want to start creating Shapes and Text Boxes. Here are some tips and tricks for working with objects:

• Use Ctrl+D to duplicate any object.
• Then you can format them all at once, identically!
• You can also group them, for easier movement and alignment (right click to see the Group option).

Most posters are landscape (horizontal) orientation. The title/author(s) will be across the top, with 3–4 columns below that contain the rest of the poster elements. Make sure you leave plenty of white space in your design—a poster crammed full of text and images is very difficult to read.

Here is an example of a 2 column poster layout using the 5 Ws for headings (who, what, where, when, and why):

Use the links below to download this template and other similar templates in two sizes: 24x36 and 36x48. These templates include a variety of placeholder elements for photos and figures.

• 2 column Powerpoint template, size 24x36
• 3 column Powerpoint template, size 24x36
• 3 column Powerpoint template, size 36x48
• 4 column Powerpoint template, size 36x48

Below are some additional web resources where you can search for templates. Keep in mind that you may need adjust the size of a template for your own poster. Alternatively, you can use the resources on this page to design your own layout in Powerpoint.

• David Geffen School of Medicine poster templates Although this is labeled for the sciences, the information can be used in many disciplines.
• Penn State poster template
• PhD Posters
• MakeSigns.com poster templates
• The body of your poster should have a minimum 24 point font . Viewers should be able to read your smallest text from a few feet away.
• The title of your poster should have a 50+ font size, depending on the size of your poster and the length of the title.
• Do not use all uppercase letters for the title or body of the poster.
• Avoid using more than 2 or 3 different fonts in one poster.
• Stick with basic fonts like Times New Roman or Georgia for serif, or Arial or Helvetica for sans-serif. Avoid elaborate, difficult-to-read, or cartoon-like fonts.

• In general, left-align your text boxes (with the possible exception of your title and any image captions). Avoid centering the text on your whole poster.
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• Last Updated: Nov 9, 2023 2:31 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/posters

How to Make a Good Poster Presentation

• First Online: 02 February 2019

Cite this chapter

• Baris Kocaoglu 8 ,
• Paulo Henrique Araujo 9 &
• Carola Francisca van Eck 10  

2718 Accesses

Poster presentations are a key component of any scientific conference. They are an excellent platform for a researcher to present their study to a large audience. Therefore, it is important to prepare the presentation in a way that catches the eye of the people attending the meeting while presenting the key data in an easy to interpret format. This will encourage the audience to engage in an academic discussion, which is vital for the researcher to obtain feedback on their study. This chapter aims to help orthopedic researchers in preparation and presentation of a scientific poster. After reading this chapter, the reader should know the various different types of poster presentation, be familiar with the technical aspect of how to make their own poster, and understand what to do at the scientific meeting to get the most out of presenting their research in poster format.

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Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Acibadem University Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey

Baris Kocaoglu

Santa Luzia Hospital, Clínica COB, Brasília, Brazil

Paulo Henrique Araujo

Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Rooney Sports Complex, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Carola Francisca van Eck

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carola Francisca van Eck .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volker Musahl

Department of Orthopaedics, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden

Jón Karlsson

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Kantonsspital Baselland (Bruderholz, Laufen und Liestal), Bruderholz, Switzerland

Michael T. Hirschmann

McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

Olufemi R. Ayeni

Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY, USA

Robert G. Marx

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL, USA

Jason L. Koh

Institute for Medical Science in Sports, Osaka Health Science University, Osaka, Japan

Norimasa Nakamura

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About this chapter

Kocaoglu, B., Araujo, P.H., van Eck, C.F. (2019). How to Make a Good Poster Presentation. In: Musahl, V., et al. Basic Methods Handbook for Clinical Orthopaedic Research. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-58254-1_23

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Scientific Conference Posters: Conference Posters

Poster samples & sharing.

Search these sites to get ideas on how posters are presented within your discipline.

Also, if you upload your poster to one of these sites you can provide handouts or bookmarks with links to the electronic version of your poster at the conference, and keep your work accessible long after the conference.

• Faculty of 1000 Research Posters Open access repository for posters and slide presentations across biology and medicine.
• eposters Open-access journal that provides free access to over 1,800 scientific and medical posters presented at conferences from around the world.
• FigShare This link opens in a new window figshare allows users to upload any file format so that scholarly information can be disseminated electronically.

Designing a Research Poster

The following resources provide guidance on the poster creation process .

• ACP American College of Physicians - Preparing a Poster Presentation This article addresses poster planning, production, and presentation.

• Makesigns Scientific Poster Tutorial Step-by-step guide to poster design and creation.

These resources can be used to obtain copyright compliant images .  Image resolution will vary.

• USC Academic Unit Logotypes University approved logos.
• Open-i - Open Access Biomedical Image Search Engine This link opens in a new window Open-i searches for images in all Open Access articles indexed in PubMed Central. Search over 600,000 copyright compliant images by keyword, topic, or image to find relevant or visually similar images.
• Pixabay This link opens in a new window Repository of free, high quality, copyright compliant images. Begin typing "medical" into the search box. Click dropdown menu to filter by image type. Sign up for free account to download images.
• Wikimedia Commons This link opens in a new window A database of freely usable, high resolution image files.
• Google Images This link opens in a new window For copyright compliant images: type in keywords, click "Search tools", click on "Usage rights" dropdown menu, select from the "Labeled for reuse" options.
• Multimedia Resources (in the Health Sciences) Guide Find videos, audio clips, images, and cases to use in education.

Working with images

• Tips for working with images in Publisher Vendor tips for working with images in Publisher. Includes content about image size, resolution, file formats, and refining.
• Photoshop isn’t the only solution: 5 best programs for resizing images This article provides step-by-step instructions on how to upsample images using Photoshop, GIMP, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Preview, and Pixlr.

Image Manipulation Guidelines

Low resolution images may be manipulated to improve print quality, however you want to proceed with caution when it comes to images that represent research data.

• Rossner, M., & Yamada, K. (2004). What's in a picture? The temptation of image manipulation. The Journal of Cell Biology, 11-15. PMID: 15240566 This article provides specific guidelines on the do's and dont's of image manipulation in scientific publishing in order to ensure the integrity of your data.

Poster Sample / Tips

Diagram image citation:  Blausen.com staff. " Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/ wjm /2014.010. ISSN 20018762. (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

• Scientific Conference Posters - Webinar This video provides an overview of some tools, resources and key elements to creating a conference poster. Content covers software, general content, design tips, provides image resources, and tips for improved print quality. ~35 min.
• Conference Poster Click here to download a pdf copy of the poster above.
• Scientific Posters PPT slides Click here to download video PPT slides.

Click on chart to access online.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/new-pastpresentfuture/3800240305 /

• Psychology of Color This site provides information on the meaning of color and how it is perceived.
• The Art of Color Coordination How to combine colors in order to have a positive effect on your audience.

Upsampling images in Photoshop

Through a process called upsampling , you can add pixels to low resolution images , and thereby improve the print quality . The short video below demonstrates how to upsample images in Photoshop .

Final Checklist

https://www.acponline.org/system/files/documents/education_recertification/education/program_directors/abstracts/prepare/poster_checklist.pdf

Universal Design

Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, size or disability. 

• Equal Access: Universal Design of Conference Exhibits and Presentations A checklist for making conference exhibits and presentations welcoming and accessible to everyone.

Microsoft Publisher Tutorials

The following resources provide guidance on how to use Microsoft Publisher . Resources at the top provide step-by-step guidance about poster creation. Links at the bottom provide general guidance on using Publisher.

• Microsoft Publisher: Conference Poster Sessions University of Liverpool's Microsoft Publisher software video tutorial. Step-by-step demonstration of the key features used to create a poster. Applicable to Publisher 2010, 2013, and 2016. Run time ~12 min.
• Publisher 2016 Essential Training Training videos via Lynda.com that offer in-depth instruction to Publisher 2016.
• Text wrapping in Publisher Guide on how to wrap text around images in Publisher.

PowerPoint Templates & Tutorials

Links to freely available PowerPoint conference poster templates , and guidance for specific software features relevant to poster creation . 

• PhD Posters - Power Point Template Files PPT templates in a variety of sizes. Packed with helpful tips and easy to customize.
• Mega Print Inc - Free Powerpoint Scientific Research Poster Templates PowerPoint® 2007-2013 templates in a variety of sizes.
• Colin Purrington's PPT Poster Templates Free PPT templates and poster making tips.
• Using grids in PowerPoint Guide on how to set up grids in PPT for better content alignment.
• Creating a Poster in PowerPoint 2010 Eastern Michigan University's detailed guide to creating a poster in PowerPoint.

Other Software

Graphics , such as charts and tables can easily be created in Excel .

• Creating Excel charts with the Recommended Charts feature Lynda.com video tutorial that demonstrates how to create charts in Excel 2013. Requires login.

Print Vendors

The following list is provided as a convenience , and is not meant to endorse or promote any particular vendor.

• PhD Posters Fabric or paper options. Also offers free PPT templates and many poster creation tips.
• PosterSmith Fabric posters.

Help from Norris Medical Library

During business hours (M-F)

• Chat with USC Libraries
• Email: [email protected]
• Request a consultation
• Ask a Norris Librarian form
• View Health Sciences Libraries tutorials or all USC Libraries tutorials
• Last Updated: Nov 1, 2023 3:17 PM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/healthsciences/posters

Intro to designing conference posters

In addition to the following links, you can find many great templates by doing a Google search for "free PowerPoint conference poster templates".

• Genigraphics

Creating a poster

Set up your poster.

• Create a new PowerPoint presentation
• Clear the layout: Home > Layout > Blank
• Size slide for:  Custom
• Enter the dimensions of your poster. Common sizes include 40in x 36in and 56in x 36in.

Prepare your work environment

• Display ruler and guides: View > Ruler and   Guides
• Customize grid line options and automatic alignment: View > Guides > Snap to grid

Create a visual theme

• Colorzilla : Browser add-on. Hover over any color to get RGB values
• Design Seeds : Get color schemes and use with Colorzilla
• DeGraeve : Color palette generator based on an image
• Fontpair : Free font pairs From the PowerPoint font collection
• Tutvid free font pairings : Free fonts to download
• 1001 Fonts : Free fonts with a nice search tool

Insert text, images, and data

• Text box: Use to create headers and short sections of text
• Shapes: Use to create discrete sections. Place text boxes over the shapes with enough white space
• SmartArt: Use to visually illustrate a process, cycle, hierarchy, or relationship
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The Scientific Conference Poster Session: Tips for Success

By Guest Blogger

This post was contributed by Brittany L. Uhlorn, a PhD Candidate at the University of Arizona.

Perhaps you’re about to present your first scientific poster, but unsure how best to prepare. Maybe you’re a presentation veteran, but have difficulty answering questions. Or perhaps you’re simply attending, but uncertain how to capitalize on your experience. No matter the reason for attending, your preparation and day-of game plan will ensure you have the most beneficial scientific conference experience possible.

Tips for poster session presenters

Prepare for success.

You’ve put a great deal of thought into designing your poster – now it’s time to practice your delivery.

• Consider your audience : Who will be attending the session, and what is their background relative to your research? Tailor your language to your audience so that they can digest what you’re saying, provide constructive criticism, and ask thought-provoking questions. For example, if you’re a virologist presenting at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, you might consider including more background on how your virus of interest causes cancer, as well as therapeutic strategies to target it, than you typically would at a microbiology meeting.
• Create an outline : Write key bullet points for what you would like to say to help build your presentation. For example, when thinking about discussing a figure, jot down the question you were trying to answer, the method you used, the main result, and the fundamental takeaway. Writing these points will help you remember what to say and provide your audience with a clear picture of your work.
• Practice, practice, practice : Rehearse your presentation with people inside and outside your field. Your colleagues, lab mates, and PI can provide feedback on your technical presentation, but those outside of your field can point out places where you gloss over essential details or omit crucial background. Practice a few times while standing at your poster – it’s a different experience to practice while seated or with your poster on your computer screen than it is to pretend you’re standing at the session.

Present with confidence

Now that you’ve printed your poster and practiced a number of times, it’s time to expertly show off your science.  

• Prepare the night before : To avoid rushing out the door without your poster, place it by your keys a day in advance. Dress for the venue and professionalism of the conference, and remember to wear comfortable shoes, as you will likely be spending a few hours on your feet. Pack water and snacks to keep you energized throughout the session, bring extra clips to hold up your poster, and pack a few business cards to tack up next to your poster.
• Arrive early : You might be nervous before your poster session, or it may be held at an unfamiliar venue. Finding your poster board well ahead of time ensures you aren’t scrambling to tack up your poster seconds before the session begins. Plus, you’ll have extra time to practice at the actual venue.
• Introduce yourself : I always find it odd when I walk up to someone’s poster, and then he/she dives right into the background without an introduction. If someone approaches your poster, introduce yourself and ask about his/her background. This will give you a chance to determine how to tailor your presentation so that it can be understood by your audience.
• Use your poster as an aid : Have you ever gone up to a poster where the presenter spends the entire time talking to the poster, as opposed to engaging with you? Be sure to use your poster as a visual aid, not a crutch. Even the most prepared of us can find ourselves talking to our posters, so if you find yourself in this situation, take a moment to pause and ask your audience if they are following along. This will not only re-engage you with those who sought out your poster, but will also give you a chance to slow down and catch your breath before diving in to the next figure.
• Remember your outline : Instead of getting bogged down in the minutia or coming off as a broken record, remember the outline you created for yourself. Hit the key bullet points and elaborate if your audience seems captivated.

Expertly navigate questions

Answering questions is arguably the most difficult part of a poster session, but with a little preparation and a few deep breaths the day-of, you’ll handle them with ease.

• Anticipate questions : When practicing with your colleagues, ask them to brainstorm potential questions you may receive. People often ask about the relationship of your work to recently published papers or “hot topics,” so be sure to be well-read on the recent literature in your field.

Tips for poster session attendees

There’s nothing more overwhelming than stepping into a sea of posters – where do you begin?

Design a game plan

Prior to attending the conference, map out which posters you are interested in viewing. For most larger conferences, poster titles and abstracts are available online or in an app prior to the session, so bookmark which posters are of most interest to you a few days in advance. If you don’t have access to a list of posters until the day-of, take a moment to step aside to read through the list at the session so you can strategically use your time. Don’t have access to a list of posters at all? No problem! At the beginning of the session, take a lap around the posters and read the titles to find the ones you’d like to revisit.

Strategically traverse the sea of posters

If you come prepared with a list of posters of interest, then you’ve already set yourself up for success. But sometimes, attendees can get sucked in to thirty-minute-long presentations, which constrains the number of posters you can see. If you are pressed for time, limit yourself to five to ten minutes per poster. Ask the presenter to give the “elevator pitch,” of his/her project – kindly let the presenter know you are very interested in his/her work, and would enjoy hearing the highlights so that you can appreciate the impact of the project as a whole.

In addition to time constraints, there may be particular poster you are interested in viewing which has drawn a large crowd, making it difficult to see the actual poster or interact with the presenter. If you don’t have time to wait for the crowd to disperse, you can either seek out the presenter after the session or find him/her on social media or through their affiliations’ website. Time permitting, you can go back to the most interesting and popular posters at the end of the session.

Get in contact

See a poster you want to know more about? Interested in doing a postdoc in a presenter’s lab? Want to collaborate with a group who presented on a topic related to your research? Find a way to get in contact with the presenter after the session. Exchange business cards or jot down their name and affiliation from the poster heading to get in touch at a later time.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be geared for success at your next poster session! There many other tips and tricks for presenting at scientific conferences, so let us know your own ways to successfully navigate poster sessions with ease.

Many thanks to our guest blogger Brittany L. Uhlorn from the University of Arizona.

Resources on the Addgene blog

• Read other posts on scientific communication
• Find more tips for scientific networking
• Read this blog post for tips on other aspects of conferences

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APA Citation Style, 7th Edition: Posters & Conference Sessions

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Citing Conference sessions, Poster abstracts, and Poster presentations

Conference sessions, poster abstracts, and poster presentations follow a significantly different format than other types of APA references.

• The author of the work is always listed first.
• Next, the FULL date of the conference is listed in the date area, so if a conference is held over several days, you need to list the date the conference starts, through the date the conference ends.
• Next add the title of the work and put it in italics, then add (in square brackets), whether it's a [Poster session], a [Poster abstract], or a [Conference session] and then add a period.
• In the source area share 1) the name of the conference or organization - or both (comma), 2) the name of the city or town the conference was held (comma), 3) the abbreviation of the state or the region (depending on the country) (comma), 4) the country the conference was held.
• Lastly share the URL of the WORK (not the conference in general) as a live hyperlink. 

Examples: 

Conference session : .

Hinck, J., Brewington, J., & Harding, K. (2018, September 12-14). Nurse educators - Making a difference in self and others to strengthen networks and partnerships [Conference session]. National League for Nursing, Chicago, IL, United States.  https://tinyurl.com/37bx7uku  

In-Text Citation (Paraphrase):

(Hinck, et al., 2018). 

Poster Abstract :

Jackson, C., McCalmont, J., Ward, J. Solanki, E., Seguin, R., & Perry, C. K. (2017, October 10). Mujeres fuertes y corazones saludables: Adaptation of the Strong Women - Healthy Hearts (SWHH) program for rural Latinas using an intervention mapping approach [Poster Abstract]. 2017 Oregon Public Health Association Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, United States.  https://tinyurl.com/y2panrdm  

(Jackson, et al., 2017). 

Poster Presentation :

NOTE: Because the poster presentations of this conference were presented in a journal, there are actually two ways you could cite this particular poster abstract, either way is acceptable in APA .  

Option 1 - Referencing ONLY the poster abstract itself : 

Leckenby, S., & Acklaghi, H. (2017, November 19-23). Is point-of-care troponin enough in decision making process in emergency departments [Poster Presentation]. ACEM ASM 2017 "Impossible is Just a Perspective" Darling Harbour, Sydney, Austalia.   https://tinyurl.com/cpkjbsu5

(Leckenby & Acklaghi, 2017). 

Option 2 - Referencing the poster abstract within the actual journal & supplement that printed the conference abstract : 

Leckenby, S., & Acklaghi, H. (2018). Is point-of-care troponin enough in decision making process in emergency departments [Poster Presentation]. Emergency Medicine Australasia, 30 (S1), 43-44.  https://doi.org/10.1111/1742-6723.12962  

Carrie Forbes, MLS

Page References

Citation information has been adapted from the APA Manual (7th Edition). Please refer to page 332-333 of the APA Manual (7th Edition) for more information.

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Presentations are crucial for effective communication, and this blog offers ten tips to make them more engaging. Suggestions include structuring your presentation like a story, using clear visuals and icons, and incorporating music and audience activities. By following these ideas, you can create memorable presentations that educate, motivate, and deeply resonate with your audience.

Presentations are the heartbeat of communication, pulsating with energy in classrooms, boardrooms, and beyond. But who wants a lackluster presentation that leaves the audience yawning? The great news is that it doesn’t have to be that way! A mesmerizing presentation has the ability to educate, motivate, and deeply resonate with your audience.

This blog is brimming with creative ideas to transform your presentations from forgettable to phenomenal. From storytelling techniques to interactive elements, get ready to turn your next presentation into a captivating experience for any audience.

10 Ideas to  Keep Your Audience Engaged During a Presentation

Presentations can be powerful tools, but a dull one can quickly lose the audience. This guide equips you with 10 creative ideas to grab attention and engage any audience!

• Structure your presentation like a story: Structuring presentation like story   by crafting a narrative starting with a captivating hook. Take your audience through your topic, and connect your message with real-world stories to make it resonate. This emotional connection helps them remember your key points.
• One Topic per Slide: Focus on clarity and avoid overwhelming your audience with information overload. Dedicate each slide to a single clear and concise point. For truly innovative presentations ideas state clear points to keep your audience engaged and ensure they grasp your message effectively,
• Use contrasting colors: Don’t be afraid to play with color! Incorporate contrasting colors in your creative presentations to make text pop off the screen and highlight key points. This vibrant approach grabs your audience’s attention and keeps them visually engaged. Think bold text against a light background, or vice versa. Avoid dull color palettes and experiment to find combinations that complement your topic and brand.
• Add music to your presentation: Adding music to your presentation can improve audience engagement and maintaining their interest. Carefully select music that complements your content and matches the tone of your message. Use instrumental tracks for professional settings or upbeat music for more informal contexts. Ensure the volume is balanced so it doesn’t overpower your voice, and strategically place music during transitions, intros, and outros for a polished, impactful delivery.
• Use icons for every pointer: Replace the bullet points in your text with simple and easily recognizable icons. Using icons can make your message more visually appealing and easier to understand and remember, as they are visually engaging and instantly recognizable.
• Visualize your data with engaging graphics: Presenting intricate and comprehensive data in visually engaging and easily understandable formats, such as interactive charts, detailed graphs, and compelling infographics, has the potential to significantly enhance the audience’s capacity to comprehend the information and retain it for extended periods.
• Enter a new dimension with 3D graphics: For fun presentation ideas , add another dimension by considering using 3D graphics to add depth and dimension to your presentation, making it even more visually engaging and impactful.
• Engage your audience with activities: Don’t forget to incorporate audience participation. You can engage your audience by using polls, hosting Q&A sessions, or even incorporating hands-on activities suitable for the setting. This will help to keep your audience actively involved and interested in your presentation.
• Bind people using emotions : Craft your presentations to resonate with your audience emotionally by incorporating compelling stories that evoke strong feelings. By establishing an emotional connection, your presentations are more likely to leave a lasting impact and be remembered by your audience.
• Share your slide deck for reference after the presentation: It’s a great idea to offer your audience access to your presentation slides after delivering your presentation. Doing so provides them with a valuable reference tool they can revisit at their convenience. This allows them to reinforce their understanding of the key points and takeaways from your presentation, and it can leave a lasting impression of your professionalism and willingness to help them continue learning.

By incorporating these creative ideas, you can transform your next presentation into a captivating experience that informs, inspires, and truly connects with your audience. Remember, your passion and enthusiasm are contagious, so embrace your creativity, practice your delivery, and get ready to deliver a presentation that will leave a lasting impression!

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2024 Presentation Guidelines

(scroll down for poster guidelines)

For Oral Presentations

Authors making oral presentations must submit a full paper to the ICSD organizers by August 1, 2024, or risk losing their presentation slot (unless they have been accepted for “6A Mission-oriented research to accelerate SDG solutions” as that theme does not require a full paper). We will begin accepting full papers on June 9, 2024. Full papers will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and used to inform the presentation order and discussion. It is optional to also have your paper published as a conference proceeding (not peer-reviewed); check the box to opt-out as you prefer.

Papers must meet the following guidelines:

• Papers cannot be longer than 9 pages including figures and tables, excluding bibliographies.
• The top of the page should include the paper title, a list of all the authors and their affiliations (Ex. John Doe, Professor, University of Illinois), and full contact details for the corresponding author (email, phone number, and mailing address).
• Text should be in 11 point Arial font and single-spaced.
• Citations should follow the  Chicago Manual of Style  and use footnotes.
• A  template  of a full paper format is available to download.
• All papers must be uploaded as a PDF file.

Please upload your paper via the AirTable submission form shared in your abstract decision email. Please note, once you’ve completed your submission, you cannot go back and edit it . You may email us at [email protected] if there are corrections needed.

All oral presenters will present virtually. Each will be given 10 minutes to present their work and an additional 5 minutes for Q&A, for a total of 15 minutes. Presenters will be able to share their screens for a slide presentation, but this is not required. Presentations will be done on Zoom Webinar. Almost all presentation software is compatible with Zoom, however videos are not recommended as the quality will be poor and there may be technical difficulties with sound. You will have to share your own screen and advance your own slides. More guidance on how presenters will connect through Zoom will be provided in August. The full program will be announced by mid-August, and we will do our utmost to accommodate presenters’ time zones.

**Important: We encourage you to incorporate feedback you receive at the event into your paper. You will have the opportunity to submit an updated manuscript after the event.**

For Poster Presentations

Authors making poster presentations must submit their posters to the ICSD organizers by August 1, 2024, or risk losing their presentation slot. We will begin accepting posters on June 9, 2024.

Please upload your poster via the AirTable submission form shared in your abstract decision email.  Please note, once you’ve completed your submission, you cannot go back and edit it . You may email us at [email protected] if there are corrections needed.

This year’s posters will be displayed in our online virtual event poster gallery from AirTable. Once the event is live, all posters will be available to view. The full program will be announced by mid-August and we will share more details on how participants can engage with poster presenters at that time.

Poster presentations must meet the following guidelines:

• All posters must be uploaded as a one page PDF.
• Poster presentations cannot be larger than 5MB.
• A  presentation sample/template  is available for download should you require assistance. You are not required to use this layout (but you are required to keep it to one page ).
• While participants will be able to zoom in or out on your poster, we suggest using at minimum Arial 17 point font for readability.
• There are no required dimensions for the posters, just the 5MB file size restriction.

More specifics on how to interact with our online poster gallery will be provided in August. Should you have any additional questions, please visit our  FAQ  or email us at  [email protected] .

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Technical groups, follow aiche, 2024 undergraduate student poster competition.

Sponsored by Omega Chi Epsilon.

Hundreds of students are expected to present their research in poster format. Prizes will be awarded in several categories. 

Over the years, the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition has become one of the highlights of the AIChE Annual Student Conference. With more than 400 students present and about 100 judges, it is the largest forum for Chemical Engineering undergraduates to present their research activity to the professional community at large.

Who can participate?

Why should you participate, submitting your abstract, abstract acceptance.

• What you need to do after submitting your abstract
• What you need to do after your abstract is accepted

Preparing your poster

Poster presentations, judging, and awards.

• Tips, FAQs, and Contact Information

[Back to Top]

This poster session is exclusively for undergraduate students to present results from projects that they have carried out as undergraduate researchers at their university or during internships/co-ops.

If you are a first-semester graduate student, you may still present work that you did as an undergraduate student. However, more senior graduate students are expected to participate in the professional meeting. Non-compliant submissions will be rejected.

You must register for the Annual Student Conference and attend the in-person portion of the conference taking place in San Diego, CA, USA in order to participate; you are expected to stand by your poster during the competition to present your work to judges and other interested people and to answer their questions.

Please note that the Poster Competition is a different session than the Undergraduate Student Technical Presentation Competition, which is an invitation-only session for the winners of Regional Paper Competitions.  This is also different from the Undergraduate Research Forums session, for which students can submit abstracts for oral presentations.

• If you are interested in pursuing graduate school in chemical engineering, the poster session is a great opportunity to meet faculty from a large variety of chemical engineering graduate programs from around the country as they tour (and potentially judge) the posters.
• Likewise, if you are looking for an industrial job, this is also a great addition to your resume, demonstrating that you have been active beyond the classroom.
• The call for abstract submissions will open on approximately August 1, 2024 and will close on Saturday, October 15, 2024.  We are unable to accept any late abstracts.
• Please discuss abstract submission with your advisor(s) well before the deadline!  Make sure that your advisor/supervisor/co-authors all sign off on your abstract before submission; all submitted abstracts become public information, so it is your responsibility to make sure that there are no confidentiality issues.
• The suggested length of the abstract is 200 - 400 words.
• As a part of the submission process, you will be asked to first pick a topic area from the following list of available topical research areas: 1) General, 2) Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, 3) Food, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnology, 4) Separations, 5) Environmental, 6) Education, 7) Fuels, Petrochemicals, and Energy, 8) Computing and Process Control, and 9) Materials Engineering and Sciences. Note that posters may be moved to a different topic area by the session organizers if deemed appropriate based on the abstract of the work submitted.
• Consult your advisor/supervisor/co-author if you are unsure which topical area is best for your poster.  For topic selection, focus on the nature of the work that was done, not on pie-in-the-sky applications. For example, fundamental research into new polymeric materials should be submitted to the “Materials” topical area, even if the ultimate applications may be for novel drink bottles, which may suggest “Food”. Only if no topical area seems particularly appropriate for capturing a substantial portion of your work, you may submit it to the “General” topic area as last resort.
• As in the past, we aim to accept as many poster abstracts for presentation as possible based upon our capacity.  We will only accept poster abstracts submitted by qualified presenters before the deadline, but may not be able to accept all poster abstracts submitted by qualified presenters before the deadline.  In the event that the number of poster abstracts received exceeds our capacity, acceptance prioritization will be based upon abstract submission date/time.
• In order to accommodate as many eligible student researchers as possible, including those who may encounter longer lead times to make travel arrangements or to request funding from their universities, we now offer the following tiered schedule of acceptance status notification based upon abstract submission date:
• We encourage students to submit abstracts as early as possible and to make plans to attend the Annual Student Conference, book travel arrangements, and begin preparing their poster prior to receiving formal approval/acceptance. 
• In the event that your poster abstract is not accepted for presentation due to capacity constraints, you’ll still get to take advantage of the many opportunities at the Annual Student Conference to network with and learn from your peers, successful chemical engineers, and company and graduate school recruiters, to develop professionally, to enhance your technical expertise, and to demonstrate your ChemE pride. 

What you need to do after submitting your abstract:

• Register for the conference. All speakers and contributors are expected to register for the Meeting on a paid basis. AIChE's registration policy is available here . AIChE does not have a grant program that awards funding towards meeting registration or travel expenses. Visit www.aiche.org/asc to register.
• Book your hotel. Book early as rooms at the negotiated rate will become unavailable quickly. Visit www.aiche.org/asc to book your hotel.
• For presenting authors requiring an invitation letter to secure a visa to travel the U.S. or for other purposes, a personalized Annual Student Conference invitation letter can be generated for you. Note that we are unable to directly contact embassies or various officials on your behalf.  Please submit your invitation letter request here:  https://aiche.formstack.com/forms/asc_invitation_letter .  Invitation letter requests will be reviewed and processed on a weekly basis, so please allow us ~1 week to send your invitation letter after submitting a request.
• If co-authors require visa letters , please contact [email protected] with co-author information (name, affiliation, email and any other information required in the letter). We are unable to directly contact embassies or various officials on their behalf.
• Prepare your poster.   Read on for more info.

What you need to do after your abstract is accepted:

• Notify all co-authors of the acceptance.
• Remember to mention your participation in the poster session to the graduate school and company representatives you meet during the Recruitment Fair on Sunday morning so that they can hopefully come see your poster and discuss your work with you.  Such interactions can make important differences in the recruitment and admissions process.
• There is no poster template for the Annual Student Conference.
• Poster Board Size: The live display of poster boards is 3.75 feet wide x 3.75 feet tall (110 cm x 110 cm). Please make sure your poster is slightly smaller so that it fits in the space.
• Printing & Bringing your Poster: Poster Presenters are responsible for bringing their posters to the conference. AIChE will not be able to print the posters. Please check the venue websites for information on printing services available. If you have never printed a poster, ask your advisor for assistance. Commercial poster printing (e.g. Kinko’s) can be expensive; your university usually provides access to poster printers much more economically.
• Poster Setup: Each poster presenter will have an assigned space. You will be able to set up your poster approximately one hour before the session starts. Please do not set up your poster earlier as it may cause confusion with someone else using that spot at an earlier poster session. Please ensure that posters are made of lightweight materials, such as paper (laminated or other), cardboard, foam core etc. to put up on the panels. Push pins will be made available at the poster session to attach your poster to the poster board.
• Poster Session FAQs & Tips: More information is available here .
• You must be present at your poster from 10am until noon on the day of the competition to talk to judges in order to qualify for the Poster Competition, so plan your flight home carefully if you plan to present a poster. 
• Each poster will be judged by a panel of typically 3 or 4 AIChE professional members from academia and industry.
• Awards will be given to the top posters in each topical area during an awards ceremony at the end of the poster session.
• This year's Undergraduate Student Poster Competition is sponsored by Omega Chi Epsilon.

Questions? Contact:

Poster Session FAQs

See photos on Flickr.

More Conference Links

Cancelation policy, code of conduct, beware of hotel and attendee-list scams.

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May 11th, 2018

How to design an award-winning conference poster.

16 comments | 328 shares

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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Before we get started, I want you to think about three things that you know about scientific posters. Think hard now.

Done? Great! Now erase those ideas from your memory. Forever .

We need to start fresh.

The problem is that 90% of the scientific posters that you’ve seen at conferences and in the corridors of your university are terrible . I mean very terrible ! Therefore, any ideas you might have about what a scientific poster should look like are probably, well…terrible. But it’s not your fault, and we’ll set things straight in this post, so hang tight!

First off, let’s make clear what a poster is not .

A poster is not a bottomless pit where you dump all of your data and technical lingo. Only carefully selected information and visuals should go into your poster. I know you have eight fancy 3D plots that you can’t wait to share with the world, but ask yourself, are they  really necessary? Do you  really  need eight of them when just one would do the trick?

Now let’s talk about what a poster  should  be instead.

Above all, a poster should be a  networking tool . The primary purpose of a poster is not to communicate every little detail of your fantastic research, but rather to attract people’s attention and serve as a conversation starter. Think about the typical conference poster session; it’s at the end of the day, and there is often a copious amount of alcohol in the mix. Seriously, after a long day of presentations, no one wants to read walls of text as the wine kicks in. What they want is for you to share the story of your research and engage in informal conversation about it. Repeat after me: a poster is a conversation starter. And the poster is not going to do the talking for you.

Second, a poster is a  communication tool.  A poster should use visuals to draw people in from a distance. Then, as people step closer and begin reading it, go ahead and give the background information necessary so that they can put your work into context, understand what you have done, why you have done it, and come to realise its broader impact.

Does this ring a bell? It’s no coincidence that the key information you’d include in your poster is the same information that you’d find in any scientific abstract. And here’s the secret: a scientific poster is simply a  visual abstract . It’s also known as a graphical abstract. A concise and visual summary of your research. Its purpose is to be accessible and to drive attention to your research.

As academics, we like to write using impossible words, passive tenses, and convoluted sentences. We believe this is the way it should be done and what makes us seem most intelligent. The reality is, this is a selfish way of writing and does not  take the reader into account . So please, break this vicious cycle of selfish scientific writing and design your poster with the reader in mind from the start.

How? Let me show you.

Step 1 – Scripting

Before you consider opening PowerPoint, or any other design software, open Microsoft Word. Any word processor will do, but make sure that it has the ability to track your word count and check your spelling. The latter is particularly important, as I learned the hard way by missing an award because of a typo!

• Target audience : ask yourself, who is my ideal audience for this poster? Is it other experts in your field, or perhaps the broader public? What is their level of understanding of the subject? This is an important question because if you put a bit of effort into making your poster understandable to the broader public, you automatically increase your potential audience and impact. Also consider that a poster written in plain English works with both experts and non-experts alike, while technical and complicated writing greatly limits your potential audience.
• Bullet points : a poster should not look like a paper, therefore, bullet points are your friend. 200-word paragraphs on a poster would discourage even the most motivated, sober, and caffeinated conference attendant. Bullet points on the other hand are a lot less frightening. There is a trend among some academics to slap a solid 200-or-so word abstract right at the top of their posters. Let me set the record straight. This has to stop. Your whole poster is a visual abstract, so it makes no sense whatsoever to put a solid block of text that no one is going to read at the top of your poster. Exception: If you’re ashamed of how terrible your data are and you don’t want people to look at your poster, then go for it, put that abstract at the top. It’ll do a wonderful job at keeping people at a safe distance!
• Use sections with headers : because we are writing with the reader in mind, we want to make the logical flow of the sections as easy as possible for the viewer to follow. My advice is to have large, easy-to-read and numbered sections that cover the main pillars of the story, which typically are:

1. Background 2. Questions/knowledge gap 3. Methods (keep this to the bare minimum or skip it if you can) 4. Results 5. Conclusions 6. References and acknowledgements (smaller at the bottom)

• Fewer words : I know this is going to shock many of you, but you should keep your word count under 250 in total. Possibly <150 words. I’m serious. The harsh reality is that if your poster is wordy, people will ignore it. Less is definitely more.
• Graphs : I know that you’re proud of your amazing graphs (especially those fancy multi-dimensional plots with lots of colours). Unfortunately, I have a bad news for you: you need to leave most of them out. You need to carefully select only the very essentials. One or two graphs is better than three or four, and certainly better than eight or nine! When selecting the graphs to display, also ask yourself who your audience is. This is important because if you are using your poster as an outreach tool for the general public, then there is no point in including complicated graphs that no one is going to understand. However, things are different if you are showing your poster exclusively to an audience of experts. In that case, it’s safe to assume your audience can read your graphs.

Step 2 – Concept

Here is where the fun starts. Grab a piece of paper, or open up your design software, and make a first draft.

• Layout and size : vertical or horizontal? You better check with the conference organisers, as you don’t want to show up at the conference with a poster that doesn’t fit the panels. A0 (841 x 1189 mm or 33.1 x 46.8 inches) is a good standard size to start. Keep in mind that when you design posters, it’s always safer to downsize than to upsize, as upsizing a digital image based on a pixel grid will inevitably cause a loss of resolution.
• Panels : how do we read; left to right or right to left? Top-down or bottom-up? It may seem obvious, but I always see posters that are visually confusing and don’t have a clear directional flow. Start with an enlarged and readable title right at the top, then create a simple layout of panels that make it easy for the viewer to navigate. Remember that we’re committed to keep the reader in mind, so use arrows and numbered headers to help them out.

• Leave space at the edges : notice the grey space in the images above? It’s important to leave some blank space around the edges for a couple of reasons. First, you don’t want to risk important information to be cut off when printing, and second, you don’t want your poster to feel cluttered. This blank space is also known as negative space, and we’re going to unpack this concept more in the next section.

Step 3 – Design

• Negative space : for some strange reason, many academics feel the need to cover every inch of their poster with text or images. This is the wrong idea! It’s bad because it makes it difficult for the viewer to find the relevant information and to rest their eye. Clear space, also known as negative space, is a super important design concept, one that you should use to your advantage. Get ready for it…40% of your poster should be clear. I am serious!
• Eye-catching visuals : imagine you’re walking around a poster session, and you’re far enough away from the posters that you can’t read titles or graphs. What will compel you to walk towards a particular poster? It’ll likely be a recognisable image that grabs your attention. Without a big and recognisable image, your poster will look like a fuzzy wall of text and it will likely go unnoticed. Therefore, it’s smart to include one big visual that’s related to your research and has the ability to hook people in from a distance. Be it a rocket, a lion, or an octopus — what matters is that it’s there.
• Colour : this should be common sense, yet still I often get my retina scarred by the most unbearable colour combinations on scientific posters.

Use a limited number of colours, say three-to-five, and stick with them! Graphs included. My suggestion is that you have two or three shades of a primary colour of your choice, an accent colour that stands out, and a couple of text colours. In a colour scheme of this kind, you can use the accent colour to draw attention to where you want people to look. The important thing is that you use the accent colour in moderation. Let me show you what I mean.

See how the 87% and the dot points stand out? This is the effect you want to recreate on your own posters. Feel free to steal these colour schemes, and in case you need some more inspiration,  Material Palette  is a free tool that creates colour palettes for you based on two colours of your choice.

• Background: I know you have that awesome photo you really want to include in the poster. Why not blow it up and use it as the background of the whole poster? No! Don’t do it! You’re not doing yourself or the viewer any favours. A photo used as a background is too distracting and makes it impossible to have negative space on your poster. It’s much better to leave the background white, grey, or filled with a light colour from your colour palette.
• Fonts : fonts and font sizes work a bit like colours. That is, the fewer you use, the better. My suggestion is to use only one or two different fonts. Boldface should be used on titles and headlines, while all the rest should be normal. When picking what fonts to use, play it safe. Stick with the classic Arial, Myriad Pro, and other familiar fonts and you can’t go wrong. I know you’re tempted to use that super-original font that you’ve just discovered, but please, spare us. In terms of font size, try 90 for the title, 60 for the headlines, and 36 for the body text. And remember that your poster should not require a magnifying glass to be read, but rather it should be easily readable from a metre away.

• Contact information : it may seem strange, but a lot of people forget to write their contact information on their posters. You may have a stunning poster, but how are people going to contact you and offer you a postdoc if you’re not around and your email is not on the poster? Even better, put a few business cards or a miniature A4 version of the poster (with contact info) beside the poster for people to take. This will have you looking very professional!
• Photo : most people don’t even think about this, but it’s a good idea to put a photo of you in one of the lower corners of your poster near your contact info. This is good practice as it makes the poster more human and even allows people to identify you and, if you’re lucky, buy you a drink because you impressed them with such a stunning poster. Hey, you never know.
• Resources : you’re probably not an artist, so where can you source quality visuals to put on your poster? Well, you can hire a professional scientific illustrator, or you can utilise one of the plenty free resources on the web. If you’re in the environmental sciences, the  IAN image library  is a great free library of graphics. Another great website to find free illustrations and icons is  Freepik.  Happy browsing!
• Software : some of you may be thinking that to make great posters you need great (and expensive) software. Wrong! All you really need is Microsoft PowerPoint and the principles contained in this blog post. Feeling like trying something more powerful? Then I recommend you check out  Canva , and if you’re really up for a challenge use  Affinity Designer,   Adobe Illustrator  or  Indesign . However, be ready for a steep learning curve and a substantial investment on these latter options. On the bright side, Adobe always has significant educational discounts for students and university staff.

Step 4 – Getting your poster ready for print

• Get feedback : you’ve designed your masterpiece. Awesome! Congratulations! Now it’s time to get feedback from your supervisor and/or colleagues before printing it. Ask them to proofread it too. And remember that people are busy, so do this well in advance, as printing often takes longer than you’d imagine.
• Dummy : before spending money printing your poster, you really want to make a dummy as a final check. Print your poster A4, or even better A3 size if you can, and triple-check that important information isn’t too close to the margins. You’re likely going to put your picture in a corner, so you want to ensure your face isn’t going to get cut in half!
• Colour profile : if you designed your poster with professional software, you’ll have the ability to control the colour profile. Nothing complicated, there are two options: RGB and CMYK. The first one is for digital use, and the second one is for printing — pick the second one. That’s all you need to know.
• Resolution : if you designed your poster big enough from the start (e.g. A0), you should be alright. As a rule of thumb, your resolution for high-quality printing posters and images should be around 300 dpi (dots per inch).
• Where to print : you have many options, from the big office supplies stores like  Officeworks , to the small print shops around campus. Print time varies from place to place, so be sure to plan this ahead of time.
• Paper : shiny things are pretty, but it’s better to avoid shiny and glossy papers when it comes to posters, as they can create annoying reflections. Matte papers are best. But paper isn’t the only option these days, some stores can even print your poster on canvas or cloth.
• Tubes and foldable posters : the most common is to print your poster on paper which fits into a cardboard tube. This is fine if you don’t need to take you poster on a flight, but have you considered that the tube might exceed the standard carry-on size limit? There is a solution! Some stores like  Officeworks  can print your poster on soft cloth materials that you can fold into your suitcase! And in case your poster gets a little wrinkly, all you need to do is to iron it. I tried this and I was very impressed by the print quality. The colours looked great!

This was a long post with lots of information, so I’m impressed you made it this far! Now that you’ve learned these solid principles, you’re halfway there to making an award-winning poster.

Oh, and one last thing. Remember when I said that a poster is a conversation starter? It’s true, so you need to prepare and sharpen your pitch! Practice walking people through your poster in about a minute, and then start a conversation with them. How? Asking them what they work on is a good start. The secret to a good conversation is showing interest and listening. People love to talk about themselves and their research, so let them talk! It’s as easy as that.

This blog post originally appeared on the  Animate Your Science  blog and is reposted here with permission .

Animate Your Science is a communication agency that empowers researchers to change the world by communicating in an effective and accessible way with video animations and graphics.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Impact Blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please review our  comments policy  if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.

About the author

Tullio Rossi is has a PhD in marine biology from the University of Adelaide. He is the founder of Animate Your Science, a company whose objective is to help scientists to get their work noticed and make a positive impact on society through the creation of video and graphical abstracts that are engaging, understandable, and shareable on social media. He is a rare breed: a marine biologist, graphic designer, and communicator all rolled into one. Tullio is Italian, but currently resides in Adelaide, South Australia. When he’s not helping scientists get discovered, he loves travelling to exotic places, exploring the underwater world, and dancing salsa!

16 Comments

Neglected to mention under adding Contact info to posters: ORCID can generate a QR code for posters, business cards, etc.

https://support.orcid.org/knowledgebase/articles/116878-orcid-qr-code

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But this post is not in the form of a poster!

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Great informative post on poster ideas. The tips are very useful definitely going to follow these tips on next poster design.

This is great! especially in todays COVID-19 world many conferences are going digital and these tips are really useful. Do you mind if we take parts of this to share with conference attendees?

if so please email and let me know as I am helping to organize a conference and we like the content, wnat to give you credit but would like to put it on our site.

Hi Desmond, this post originally appeared on the Animate your Science blog, so I would suggest contacting them for permissions.

Recently I have won a poster prise following your instructions. I really wanted to thank you!

I didn’t know how much attention could get someone by designing a poster. Nice info

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Tonix pharmaceuticals announces poster presentation at the annual european congress of rheumatology (eular) 2024.

Presentation to highlight statistically significant Phase 3 results of Tonmya™ (TNX-102 SL) for the management of fibromyalgia

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CHATHAM, N.J., June 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: TNXP) (Tonix or the Company), a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical company with marketed products and a pipeline of development candidates, today announced a poster presentation at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR) 2024, being held June 12-15, 2024 at the Messe Wien Congress Center in Vienna, Austria. Details on the presentation can be found below.

A copy of the Company’s poster presentations will be available under the Scientific Presentations tab of the Tonix website at www.tonixpharma.com following the conference. Additional meeting information can be found on the EULAR website here .

Poster Presentation Details

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. *

Tonix is a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on developing, licensing and commercializing therapeutics to treat and prevent human disease and alleviate suffering. Tonix’s development portfolio is focused on central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Tonix’s priority is to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA in the second half of 2024 for Tonmya1, a product candidate for which two statistically significant Phase 3 studies have been completed for the management of fibromyalgia. TNX-102 SL is also being developed to treat acute stress reaction as well as fibromyalgia-type Long COVID. Tonix’s CNS portfolio includes TNX-1300 (cocaine esterase), a biologic designed to treat cocaine intoxication that has Breakthrough Therapy designation. Tonix’s immunology development portfolio consists of biologics to address organ transplant rejection, autoimmunity and cancer, including TNX-1500, which is a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting CD40-ligand (CD40L or CD154) being developed for the prevention of allograft rejection and for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Tonix also has product candidates in development in the areas of rare disease and infectious disease. Tonix Medicines, our commercial subsidiary, markets Zembrace ® SymTouch ® (sumatriptan injection) 3 mg and Tosymra ® (sumatriptan nasal spray) 10 mg for the treatment of acute migraine with or without aura in adults.

*Tonix’s product development candidates are investigational new drugs or biologics and have not been approved for any indication.

1 Tonmya™ is conditionally accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the tradename for TNX-102 SL for the management of fibromyalgia. Tonmya has not been approved for any indication.

Zembrace SymTouch and Tosymra are registered trademarks of Tonix Medicines. All other marks are property of their respective owners.

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Jessica Morris Tonix Pharmaceuticals [email protected] (862) 904-8182

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Released June 5, 2024