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The State University of New York at FredoniaReed Library

OSCAR Support: Designing Poster Presentations

Printing Your Poster

Large format printing is available at the ITS Service Center, located in Room W203 in Thompson Hall. Students and faculty can print full sized posters.

Best Practices

Illustration of the poster design process

  1. Define the requirements
    • Who is the intended audience?
    • What are the requirements for the presentation?
    • What do posters presented in your field of research typically look like?
    • What platform will you use to create your poster?
  2. Find a story and tell it simply
  3. Find examples of good layout design
  4. Iterate until you find a layout that works
  5. Refine the content and layout (repeat steps 2-5 as needed)
  6. Print it!

Source: Colgate University

All posters should include:

  • Title
  • Author(s) and their contact information (email address, phone number if applicable)\

Depending on the poster's topic/field of research, a poster may also include:

  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Conclusions
  • References
  • Acknowledgements
  • Tables, charts, images, and other illustrative matter

Source: Loyola University

  • Highlight the main point so that it can be read and understood from a distance
  • Limit the amount of text to 300-800 words -- less is more!
  • Include meaningful images, graphics, or charts to convey information

Source: Yale University Library

Colors

  • Make sure that the contrast between background and text color meets accessibility best practices
  • Avoid only using color to convey meaning. Instead, use patterns or shading in addition to color on charts, graphs, illustrations, and maps where color differences are intended to convey information.

Fonts

  • Sans-serif fonts such as Arial, Gill Sans, Helvetica, and Verdana are recommended for body and heading text
  • Serif fonts such as Times New Roman and Garamond are recommend for headings only

Text Size

  • Main title: 72 point (minimum) - 158 point (ideal)
  • Section headings: 42 point (minimum) - 56 point (ideal)
  • Body text: 24 point (minimum) - 36 point (ideal)
  • Captions: 18 point (minimum) - 24 point (ideal)

Digital Formats

​If the poster will be available in a digital format (e.g., as a PDF posted on a website) it is important to ensure that the poster is accessible to people using screen readers.

  • Provide alt text and/or descriptive captions for images, figures, and charts.
  • Define reading order for blocks of text and other poster elements: in PowerPoint, go to Arrange → Selection Pane → Drag items into the correct order (note that screen reader will read from bottom to top).
  • PowerPoint has a built in accessibility checker that will highlight issues and tell you how to fix them: Tools → Check Accessibility → Inspection Results
  • If exporting to PDF format, be sure to “Save to PDF” or “Save as Adobe PDF” (not “Print to PDF”).

Source: Yale University Libraries

Examples of Well Designed Posters

Developing a Peer Mentored Program for the UC Davis University Honors Program
Empathy as a Moderator for Persuasion
Growing Trees in Tubes
Bacteria in Infant Feeding Tubes

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Accessibility Statement: Reed Library is dedicated to making information accessible for everyone. If you notice an accessibility issue within this guide, please contact Katelynn Telford

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