How to Design Posters

Hi Reader, in your academic career you will almost certainly have to design a poster.

But doing so is not easy. Where to start? Which font size? Which data?

I would argue it becomes much easier if you answer one question:

What is the goal of your poster?

We already talked about potentially outstanding poster designs before, therefore, let's now understand the key to finding the right one for you:

Why Common Advice Doesn't Help

Most posters die from too much clutter. They are filled with blocks of text and dozens of figures.

The many guides I read gave a lot of “interesting” advice. They told you to design your poster using a grid and to print small pieces to figure out what looks good. Also, thinking about who your audience is can help.

However, I would argue that these tips don’t really move the needle for you.

You still don’t know what design to use. On the other hand, a ready-made template might not fit your graphs.

But knowing what you want to achieve with your poster will give you a clear orientation since you will know what to prioritize.

One Question Makes the Difference

Nevertheless, simply giving you the tip to think about the goal of your poster is, to my mind, not very helpful either.

Why? Because we need to talk about how to do it, not just what to do. And I have never seen anybody doing that.

The goal of your poster is not “to be good” or “to look good” or “to tell your research story.” Cut the common sense. You goal must be specific and have implications.

What A Goal Looks Like

The key is to be courageous and honest. Here are exemplary goals you can have with your poster:

• A) Getting Feedback
  ​You want to present new data and get feedback from others working in that field or senior scientists. But let’s get even more precise: you might want to i) find out in which direction you should go, ii) whether others believe your data, or iii) whether they consider your work impactful.
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• B) Presenting New Data​
  You might want to show that you are an expert in your field in order to i) make other people aware so they cite your paper, and ii) make group leaders or employers aware of you personally.
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• C) Finding Collaborators​
  You want to show your current progress to discuss it with people from similar fields and find others you might be able to team up with.
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• D) Winning a Poster Prize​
  You want to get some perk for your CV or you just enjoy science communication.

• E) You Just Need a Poster to Participate​
  You might not have the time or motivation, but you need a poster to get accepted, secure travel funding, or simply as an excuse for your boss. Although it seems sleazy, it is also a valid goal.

As you see, these goals are essentially implications or aiming at specific results.

That is important because it makes the decision about which design is right for you and which data to choose much clearer.

Of course, these are not all goals that might exist, but those I would argue you will find most often. That means if you just choose one of them you will be well positioned.

A Concrete Example for You

To make things precise, let’s assume we want to follow up on B) i) or E).

Which Data to Include

• B) Only those that are the newest and that underline your key message (e.g., PKC concentration correlates with tumor volume in mice).
• E) Those that are the easiest to explain (and copy-paste).
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Which Design to Use

• B) You need a mix of 500–800 words and figures. You don’t want an artistic and innovative design because too little text risks people not understanding your work and its uniqueness. Moreover, relevant experimental data must be displayed in detail since you are talking to “experts,” i.e., those who also work on the topic, not people from very different fields.
• E) As few graphical elements as possible, as they take more time. A design that brings order into large text blocks to make a somewhat visually accessible poster.
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What to Highlight

• B) The implications, robustness and uniqueness of your data – less emphasis on explaining the background to a lay audience.
• E) An intriguing or funny hook to make people read your content.

What That Means

I hope you can see how just having a goal in mind makes initially overwhelming decisions easy (no more too many opportunities).

However, it requires you to make a decision.

You might be able to get feedback and trigger interest for citations, but it is unlikely that you can cover all five goals.

However, if you take some time, you can create a poster that is clearer than two-thirds of all others – you just need the right approach.

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