Although humor is a great way to add interest and draw readers into your poster, it may offend others who may not speak your language or understand the intention of your humor. The best route is to use clear, concise language throughout your poster to drive home your main message.
Empty space is critical for a readable poster; without it, your reader has no visual pauses to think. Crammed posters are tiring to read and are seldom read in their entirety. Omit all extraneous text or visual distractions, including borders between related data and text, so the reader can assimilate your ideas easily. More material may mean less communication.
The logical flow of the poster material should be in columns (not rows!) that occur in a left-to-right progression, so that the movement of the eye over the poster is natural. Lead viewers through the logical flow with big, bold "take-home points" visible over a crowd. If your reference list becomes unusually long, you can sometimes shrink the font and then make a "2 column" citation list (but keep the section's header sized to match the rest of the poster).
Use plain, descriptive language in the title so there's no mystery what the poster is about. It should be short and concise, yet excessively informative. If it doesn't fit on one line consider shortening it and adding a descriptive subtitle, but avoid using a colon.
Whenever possible, use lists of sentences and bullet points rather than blocks of text. This is especially helpful for the method and conclusion sections.
Since the size of scientific posters vary, there is no set formula to determine the size of your font. However, we've found a good rule of thumb to go by. View your PowerPoint slide as "Fit" instead of at a certain percentage and if you can still read your title and headers then your font should be large enough.
If you'd like something more acurate, you can use the formula to the right to determine how far to zoom in to view your poster at the size it will be printed.
Most prefer to use a non-serif font (e.g., Arial) for titles and headings, and a serif font (e.g., Times) for body text. Serif-style fonts are much easier to read at smaller font sizes.
DO NOT USE ALL CAPS IN TITLES, HEADERS, BODY TEXT, OR EVEN IN YOUR GRAPH LABELS. YOUR READERS MAY TAKE IT AS YELLING.
Instead try to stick with "Title Case" or "Sentence case."
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