Tips for Designing Posters
by Susan Delap

Suggested software

For those unfamiliar with designing posters, a good starting point is this 4-page PDF (6MB) file titled Posters for Scientific Meetings. It is from Suggestions to Authors of the Reports of the United States Geological Survey, Seventh Edition, 1991. Click here for a shorter, rewritten, HTML version of the above.

My thoughts on designing posters:

• Don't forget to allow for the plotter margins BEFORE you begin designing your poster: 0.67" on the ends and 0.2" on the sides. See "How to Print to the Plotter" for a diagram.
• Study other people's posters. Find ones that are easy to follow and notice what techniques they used. Use similar techniques in your own posters. (Graphic designers frequently "borrow" design elements they like from other sources.)
• Use sans serif fonts (eg., Arial, Helvetica) for headings, serif fonts (eg., Times Roman) for blocks of text.
• Make your headings stand out from your body of text. Bold them, make them 2-3 times bigger in point size.
• Use a minimum of 18 point size for text.
• Don't use a lot of different colors. (For example, don't make every heading a different color. You could make the abstract a different color since it is usually read first, and you want it to stand apart from the rest of your poster.)
• Use consistency in size and format when designing graphs, figures, labels, etc.
• Try to align elements such as text and columns of figures along the same vertical line. This gives your poster a clean, professional look.
• Graphics - highly compressed JPEG and GIF files that look great on a 72 dpi computer screen will look awful printed at 300dpi on the plotter. Test image quality by printing graphics out on a laser printer first at the size you plan to use in your poster. You may have to shrink their dimensions to improve their appearance. TIF or BMP files are better choices to use for printing. For photographs, use a minimum of 100 dpi resolution at the size that you will be printing. You shouldn't need more than 150 dpi. For line art, or graphics with text, use a minimum of 300 dpi at the size you will be printing. If the text is part of the graphic, remove the text (use eraser or clone tool in your graphics editor), and then use your poster layout software to retype the text in a text box and place the text box on top of the graphic. Then you can decrease the resolution of your base graphic.

• CorelDraw - This program is a little complicated to learn, but there aren't any size limitations, and you have more special effects and color management options at your disposal. Only one PC in the MSEC 239 lab has it. The Bureau has this program, but they prefer that you convert your file to a PDF.
• Adobe Illustrator - This program is very similar to CorelDraw. One Mac and one PC in MSEC 239 has it installed, and the Mac in MSEC 345 has a copy. For Mac users, be sure to embed your graphics and fonts before printing. The Bureau has this program, but they prefer that you convert your file to a PDF.
• ESRI ArcMap - I haven't used this, but others recommend using the ArcPress driver instead of the Windows driver (on the printer dialog box). See Software Manager to get ArcPress loaded if you can't find it.
• MS PowerPoint - USE THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK. Posters printed using this program frequently have graphics and equations mysteriously drop out. There is no known fix for this problem. If you must use PowerPoint, convert the poster to a PDF and TRY printing it. If the RIP fails to process the PDF file, go to the Bureau and try to print it there. PowerPoint has a page size limitation of 56" wide. Click here for a workaround.
• Deneba Canvas - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. The Bureau doesn't support this program. Convert to a PDF before printing at the Bureau.
• MS Publisher - Don't use this. It's not installed in MSEC 239, and there are problems printing items over 48" wide.