Learning and Teaching: Poster Presentations: Poster Design

Steps to Designing a Poster

There is no single way to design a poster. Browse online for examples of effective posters to gather ideas on layout, colour schemes, and design elements.

Skeleton Plan: Start with a basic outline of your poster, mapping out where the title, sections, images, and other key elements will go.
Fill in the Details: Add your content, such as text, images, and charts, ensuring that each section is clear and concise.
Finishing Touches: Refine your design by adjusting fonts, colors, and spacing. Ensure readability and visual appeal by checking for balance and consistency across the poster.

Do	Don't
Design a natural, intuitive layout that leads readers from one section to another. (e.g., from left to right and top to bottom)	Force readers to spend effort figuring out the order of information in your poster.
Use borders to clearly segregate different sections and visually reinforce the divisions between different categories of information.	Allow different subsections of your poster to blend together.
Select easy-to-read sans serif fonts (e.g., Calibri, Arial) in a relatively large font size so your text can be read from across a room	Select fonts that are hard to read because they are too fancy or too small.
Surround your text and figures with empty space so audiences can focus on one visual element at a time.	Overcrowd your posters with text and figures.
Stick to a limited colour palette to avoid a chaotic appearance so that your content is the main attraction.	Use colour combinations that are hard on the eyes or difficult to read.
Deliberately align your visual elements to create a sense of harmony and symmetry.	Carelessly place visual elements on a poster.