Tips on Poster Design & Presentation

General Thoughts:

  • A poster is NOT a collection of slides from a talk, or a research paper printed out on a big sheet of paper.
  • Posters are more visual (effective graphics, not as much text), and meant to encourage discussion with viewers during the poster session.
  • Discuss your poster plans with your mentor early. Some mentors will provide specific templates.
  • Remember you are representing the entire research team when you present a poster, so it is essential to get everyone’s input before printing.

Principles to keep in mind:

  • Practical details. Be sure to read the instructions, especially for size of the poster. An easy and generally accessible way to put together your poster is in Powerpoint. Just set the page size correctly at the beginning, so you don’t have to reformat everything later when you realize you used the wrong size.
  • Basic components. You need to include: a title and list of authors; introduction with background information; methods; results; and discussion with conclusions and possibly future directions. Note “abstract” is not on the list. The poster is already a summary, so it is not necessary to add another block of text further summarizing the poster. But check with the meeting rules as some do want an abstract. A reference section is also not on the list, although you can include some. The rules are not as stringent as for a publication, but if there are a few key references you want your viewers to know about, you can include them directly in the text, with enough information for people to find the paper, or gather them at the end in a short
  • Organization. Most posters use horizontal layout (wider than they are tall), but when viewed during the poster session by actual people, the viewers want to move once from left to right, instead of moving back and forth several times. To facilitate this, organize the poster in columns (2-4, depending on the poster width), and put everything in the columns in order.
  • Size of elements and the “arm’s length” test. When you have the basic elements of the poster in place, print out a copy on a letter sized piece of paper and hold it at arm’s length. You should be able to read most of the text and tell what is in the figures. If not, you need to use a larger font size (and probably edit down your text) and make the figures larger. You want everything to be easily read by someone standing a few feet away, behind the crowd that will inevitably form to discuss your exciting data.
  • Other visual design principles. Because posters are a visual medium (and poster sessions are a bit of a competition for attention), it can help to have a visual entry point to grab the viewer’s attention. This can be an enlargement of an image from your research, or a diagram of the system you work on, or a picture of your experimental organism, placed prominently at the top of the poster. Another principle that will make your poster easier to view is to keep the color scheme limited. You may have to include some colors that are in your data, but then try to reuse the same colors elsewhere. Finally, be consistent in your layout—keep the column widths consistent, make graphs fit the columns instead of the other way around, and line everything up.
  • Font and text. To avoid too much visual noise, stick to one font or font family (preferably a sans serif font, definitely not comic sans), have consistent rules about size, and be judicious in your use of bolding or underlining for emphasis. Most importantly, remember that empty space is your friend on a poster, and you can use it to make the important points really stand out. Edit your text ruthlessly. The point of a poster session is to have conversations about your project with the attendees, so you don’t need to explain every detail on the poster.
  • Rehearse. You want to have a short presentation (no more than 10 minutes) prepared, to “walk” someone through your poster. You should rehearse the presentation ahead of time, and make sure you remember the important points. In fact, you should outline what you want to say while you are designing the poster, to make sure the order on the poster matches your presentation.
  • Have fun! Look at the schedule, and make sure you are standing at your poster at the correct time. Be engaging, encourage questions, offer to explain your poster to anyone who pauses for an instant, and convey your excitement about your work.

For additional pointers, this blog is very helpful: http://betterposters.blogspot.com/. It gives many examples of good (and hilariously bad) posters, and lots of specific design advice.