research proposal poster examples

How to Create a Research Poster

• Poster Basics
• Design Tips
• Logos & Images

What is a Research Poster?

Posters are widely used in the academic community, and most conferences include poster presentations in their program.  Research posters summarize information or research concisely and attractively to help publicize it and generate discussion. 

The poster is usually a mixture of a brief text mixed with tables, graphs, pictures, and other presentation formats. At a conference, the researcher stands by the poster display while other participants can come and view the presentation and interact with the author.

What Makes a Good Poster?

• Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
• Title is short and draws interest
• Word count of about 300 to 800 words
• Text is clear and to the point
• Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read
• Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
• Consistent and clean layout
• Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation

A Sample of a Well Designed Poster

View this poster example in a web browser .  

Image credit: Poster Session Tips by [email protected], via Penn State

Where do I begin?

Answer these three questions:.

• What is the most important/interesting/astounding finding from my research project?
• How can I visually share my research with conference attendees? Should I use charts, graphs, photos, images?
• What kind of information can I convey during my talk that will complement my poster?

What software can I use to make a poster?

A popular, easy-to-use option. It is part of Microsoft Office package and is available on the library computers in rooms LC337 and LC336. ( Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint ).

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign

Feature-rich professional software that is good for posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive.  NYU Faculty, Staff, and Students can access and download the Adobe Creative Suite .

Open Source Alternatives 

• OpenOffice is the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its PowerPoint alternative).
• Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products.
• For charts and diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts .
• A complete list of free graphics software .

A Sample of a Poorly Designed Poster

View this bad poster example in a browser.

Image Credit: Critique by Better Posters

• Next: Design Tips >>
• Last Updated: Jul 9, 2024 5:34 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/posters

Designing a Research Poster

• Getting Started
• Sections of a Poster
• Design Tips
• Using Images
• Formatting A Poster

Poster Examples

• << Previous: Formatting A Poster
• Last Updated: Jun 4, 2024 11:15 AM
• URL: https://libguides.butler.edu/researchposter

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Research Posters

Creating your poster, what to include in your poster, color scheme choices, more helpful tips.

• Visualizations & images
• Illinois Logo
• Archiving - Grad Students
• More Resources
• Oral Presentations
• 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium This link opens in a new window

You have two choices when creating a research poster:

• You can create your poster from scratch by using PowerPoint, Adobe InDesign, or a similar design program. 
• You can use one of the  University of Illinois Research Poster Templates .

Sizing your Poster

• If you are presenting for the  Undergraduate Research Symposium , resize your slide to width 48 inches by height 36 inches.
• If you are presenting at a  professional conference , your instructions should indicate the size limits of your poster. Standard U.S. conference poster size is 48" by 36". 

​ IMPORTANT: You must change the size of your slide before you start working on your poster. This will ensure that your images and text do not become pixilated when the poster is printed. See below for specific instructions. 

How to correctly size your poster in PowerPoint:

• Select the "Design" tab
• Click "Slide Size"
• Select "Page Setup"
• Under the "Slides sized for:" dropdown menu, select "Custom"
• Set the "Width" and "Height" to what is needed for your poster
• Click "OK" 

How to correctly size your poster in Adobe InDesign:

When a new document is created in Adobe InDesign, a dialogue box prompts you to enter dimensions:

• Change the dimension metric to inches from the drop down box.
• Margins are intentional space from an object to the edge of the poster, intended not to be trimmed. You can set this to 0 inches on all sides unless you have a specific plan to use margins in your design.
• Bleed shows the printer where to trim white space that occurs when printing color onto white poster paper. If you are printing your poster, include at least a 0.25 inch bleed on each side; remember not to place any content in the bleed as it will be trimmed by the printer.
• Slug is a space for the creator to leave any notes for the printer. You can set this to 0 inches unless you have notes. 

If you ever want to change your poster dimensions after starting the poster, you can do so through the Document Setup Menu .

All posters MUST have:  

• Title: Make it catchy and use at least 72 pt. font. 
• Your name and contact information.
• Institutional affiliation, see the  Illinois logo  tab above.

You many also include:

• Research question or hypothesis: Do not copy your abstract if it is included in the program. 
• Methodology: What is the research process that you used? Explain how you did your research.
• Your interview questions.
• Observations: What did you see? Why is this important?
• Findings: What did you learn? Summarize your conclusions.
• Themes: Pull out themes in the literature and list in bullet points.
• Consider a brief narrative of what you learned - what was the most interesting/surprising aspect of your project?
• Add interesting quotes from your research.
• Data: Use your data to generate charts or tables.
• Images: Include images (visit the  Visualization & Images  tab in the guide for more information). Take your own or legally use others.
• Recommendations and/or next steps for future research.
• Citations: Only list 3-5 on your poster. If you have more, put them on your handout.
• Acknowledgements: Don't forget to thank your advisor, department, or funding agency.

Using multiple font styles can really make your poster stand out and look professional. Consult this graphic to understand different font styles, what fonts work best together, and what fonts to avoid.

Sticking to a color scheme can help your poster look professional. Consistent use of color can help your viewer understand how information is organized on your poster. Not sure where to start with color?

• Pick colors from an image (including a custom one you're planning to use on your poster)
• Use Illinois branding colors

Not sure what to do with the hex code from a brand guide or color palette generator?

• Adobe InDesign

Always check that your text is accessible on background colors using WebAIM's free contrast checker.

If printing your poster, it's a good idea to do a small-scale test print of your poster before getting it printed. Colors often appear brighter and more vibrant on a screen than when printed. There still might be some variation in color depending on the color scale the printer uses, but it will be a closer match on paper than what you see on screen.

• Read Colin Purrington's suggestions for successful poster design.
• Be creative in your display, think beyond the text of your paper. You can use boxes, formatting, font, and images to break up the sections of your research poster.
• Think carefully about your title. If you would like a longer, more descriptive title, consider a subtitle. Brainstorm several titles and have a peer/colleague/friend/teacher rank them. The title needs to highlight your subject matter, but it does not need to state all your conclusions. Some good titles simply ask questions, others answer them.
• You can section your poster according to the major points about your research you want to convey. For example: title, abstract, methodology, data, results, and conclusion. Consider the flow of your poster--these should be in a logical, easy-to-read order. Remember that most people read from left to right and top to bottom.
• Qualitative data (e.g. quotes from references and/or interviews) can also be shared on your poster. Make sure you include captions, legends, annotations, citations, and footnotes, if necessary.
• Design your poster as if you were designing for a professional publication. Be consistent with your layout, color choices, fonts and sizes.
• All text of your poster should be *at least* 24 font size and an easy-to-read font style (e.g. Arial or Verdana). Anything smaller is too difficult to read.
• Remember the “KISS Principle”: Keep It Simple, Stupid! In succinct, brief, jargon-free terms, your poster must explain: 1) the scientific problem in mind (what’s the question?), 2) its significance (why should we care?), 3) how your particular experiment addresses the problem (what’s your strategy?), 4) the experiments performed (what did you actually do?), 5) the results obtained (what did you actually find?), 6) the conclusions (what do you think it all means?), and, optionally, 7) caveats (any reservations?) and/or 8) future prospects (where do you go from here?).
• What is the number one mistake made in poster presentations? Too much information! Try to keep your poster to the point and and clear. You can always include more information in your handout or on a website.
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• Next: Visualizations & images >>
• Last Updated: Oct 29, 2024 11:53 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/poster

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Free Research Poster Templates and Tutorials

Creating engaging research posters is an important skill for every scientist. this guide provides design tips and detailed tutorials for making posters using free templates., scientific poster templates.

Whether you are creating a research poster for the first time or have years of experience, this article reviews helpful tips on how to create effective designs. There are also links to free poster templates and videos that show you how to create effective scientific posters in PowerPoint and Adobe Illustrator.

How to Make Good Poster Content

My top recommendation for creating an engaging poster for a scientific conference is to describe your results with simple main points that allow your audience to easily follow your research with minimal effort. The sections below describe how to use main point brainstorming to create poster titles and subtitles that improve audience understanding. 

Step 1. Create Short Main Points

People don't spend much time reading the poster, so the shorter you can make the main points, the better. My favorite way to determine the main points of your research poster is to brainstorm a full list of all of your research results and then create a shorter sentences that clearly summarize the information that you want your audience to know.

The first drafts of your main points can be long sentences with jargon, but the goal is to then take these full descriptions and transform them into simple phrases that allow poster viewers to visualize the results.

My tip for creating clear main points is to reduce the number of subjects, remove descriptions, and do not use more than one or two verbs. In scientific research results, there is almost always one main point action (e.g. something increases, decreases, changes, or stays the same) involving one to three components. Below are more examples of how to do this main point simplification.

Main Point Examples:

• Brainstorm:  Identification of miRNAs Upregulated by Isl1-Lhx3 During Motor Neuron Differentiation
• Better:  miRNAs Upregulated During Motor Neuron Differentiation
• Best:  miRNAs Upregulated in Developing Motor Neurons
• Brainstorm:  miR-218 Direct Spinal Cord Target mRNAs Identified using a RISCtrap Screen
• Better:  Identification of miR-218 Target mRNAs
• Best:  Identified miR-218 Targets
• Brainstorm:  Inhibition of miR-218 Activity Suppresses Endogenous Motor Neuron Generation
• Better:  miR-218 Inhibition Suppresses Motor Neuron Generation
• Best:  miR-218 is Important for Motor Neuron Development

Step 2: Create an Effective Research Poster Title

The poster title is one of the first things your audience reads and plays an important role in helping people understand your results. In order to create an effective title, I recommend that you take your optimized list of main points and try to summarize them with one big picture phrase. This is also a great way to help you brainstorm the title for research publications, but keep in mind that the poster title should be more reader-friendly than a manuscript title and use less details.

Poster Title Example:

• Brainstorm:  miR-218 is Essential to Establish Motor Neuron Fate as a Downstream Effector of Isl1–Lhx3
• Better:  miR-218 is Essential in Determining Spinal Cord Motor Neuron Identity
• Best:  miR-218 is Essential for Spinal Cord Motor Neuron Development

The brainstorm example above was used as the title for my  first-author Nature Communications paper , but unless you are in my lab or in the exact same field of research, the term "Isl1-Lhx3" may not have much meaning for you and "downstream effector" is not a common phrase. Poster titles should use more common words that are easily understood outside of my specific field of developmental biology.

Reference: All content and data examples are from my open source first-author publication in  Nature Communications .

Step 3. Create Poster Sections that Support the Main Points

After the title and main points are created, you can use these short phrases as subtitles that categorize your poster into sections that help your audience digest the information. The examples below show how you can use the main points to create guideposts in the results and a clear conclusions section that simplify the scientific story.

Research Poster Design Tips

Good visual design is also an essential part of creating an engaging research poster. People pay closer attention to details when they are easy to understand and interesting to look at. This requires that you use design best practices for color design, images, and composition to improve audience understanding. Learn how to improve your scientific poster designs with the tips below. 

Poster Color Design

Colors can make a poster standout from the crowd and enhance audience understanding. My recommendation is to use poster colors that follow the three rules below:

• Choose a light background color does not distract from the main points, such as muted blues, reds, or greens (see example image).
• Choose colors that don't have conflicts for people with color blindness.
• Limit the total number of colors used and use bright colors draw attention to the most important points of the poster.

Learn more about scientific color design in this review article:

• Best Color Palettes for Scientific Figures and Data Visualizations

Poster Illustrations and Images

The most engaging posters also contain custom illustrations or images that show the methods and results of your research. Most people will read the title and then look for pictures that enhance their understanding of your scientific story.

Consider creating custom illustrations to explain your methods and conclusions section using Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, or Inkscape. Check out the resources below for more information on how to use scientific illustration templates and how to create your own designs.

Scientific Illustration and Image Resources

• Free Online Courses and Templates
• Animal Model and Research Illustrations
• Alternatives to BioRender
• How to Use Scientific Images

Poster Composition and Data Visualization

Good poster design also requires that you use an engaging layout and data visualizations. The goal is to make the poster easy-to-understand by using good composition techniques that reduce clutter and use graphs that make the main point clear. Below are some helpful resources that teach you how to create designs for effective scientific storytelling and figures within your poster.

Scientific Design Resources

• Scientific Figure and Graph Design Tips
• How to Make Graphical Abstracts
• Data Visualization Techniques
• Data Storytelling Tips

Create professional science figures with illustration services or use the online courses and templates to quickly learn how to make your own designs.

Interested in free design templates and training.

Explore scientific illustration templates and courses by creating a Simplified Science Publishing Log In. Whether you are new to data visualization design or have some experience, these resources will improve your ability to use both basic and advanced design tools.

Interested in reading more articles on scientific design? Learn more below:

Scientific Presentation Guide: How to Create an Engaging Research Talk

Data Storytelling Techniques: How to Tell a Great Data Story in 4 Steps

Best Science PowerPoint Templates and Slide Design Examples

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Research Posters: Toolkit

• Writing Abstracts

Template Options

Best practices, additional considerations.

• Data Visualization
• Design Choices
• Before you Print
• Virtual Presentations
• In-Person Presentations
• Publishing Your Poster
• Citing Sources
• Workshop: Creating Research Poster Presentations

Selecting a Layout

Once you have gathered the content of your project, you can decide how to organize the content on your poster. Choose the structure that best showcases the significant findings of your research. 

In many academic disciplines, particularly the sciences, research projects are often organized according to the  IMRAD format:

• Introduction/Background
• Results AND
• Discussion/Conclusion

If your research uses a historical or an experimental approach, consider alternate layouts such as  timelines, Q&As, or any other narrative format  that correlates well with your research.

Each of these templates are highly customizable.  Please feel free to make adjustments to the color schemes and fonts and to add photographs, icons, illustrations, charts, and other design elements. We strongly encourage you to make your poster stand out!

The 4-column poster template is widely used for research posters and works well for the IMRAD format. Information is read from top to bottom, left to right. 

The 3-column template is also suited for the IMRAD format, but may also be used for timelines, etc. Information on this template is read from top to bottom, left to right. This template is nearly identical to the Four Column Poster Template, but accommodates larger images and figures.

The Alternative Poster Template has a minimalist design, so consult with your instructor before opting to use this template. Information on this template is read a little differently; audience members will first be drawn to the large heading in the center, then read the information in the left column, and then look at the images and figures in the right column. Because this template is a minimalist design, you may want to use a QR code to link to a web site with additional details that don't fit on the poster itself.

Research posters are designed to provide the significant highlights of a research project in a visual, eye-catching way. Here are some best practices to guide you:

• Catchy title
• Clear statement of purpose
• Readable design: Horizontal layouts usually include 3-5 columns with balanced combination of text and graphics
• Be brief: 500 – 1,000 words, comprised of short paragraphs and bulleted lists
• Figures/Tables should have a clear purpose and be clearly labelled
• Major findings/results should be the focus
• Bibliography should be selective, usually 3 – 5 citations

Most people naturally read Four-Column posters from left to right, top to bottom. If your poster layout deviates from this, you will need to make the organization clear to your audience through the use of arrows or other icons to show how the audience should read the information. 

The layout of any poster can be improved with the intentional use of images, figures, icons, headings, and any other means of breaking up the text of your research poster. That being said, approximately  40% of your poster should be "blank space"  that is free of text, figures, and images. 

• << Previous: Writing Abstracts
• Next: Data Visualization >>
• Last Updated: Jul 24, 2024 12:11 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.usf.edu/ResearchPosters

Research Posters: Creation, Design, & Best Practices

• Getting Started on your Poster
• Poster Templates and Examples
• Designing an Effective Poster
• Making a Poster with Powerpoint
• Handouts for Your Poster
• Printing your Poster @ UTM / Off-campus

Poster Templates available for download

Downloadable Poster Templates in Powerpoint format  

• Science Project Poster (from MS Office Website)
• Posters Templates (from Phd Posters)
• Custom Google Search for Poster Templates

Examples of Research Posters

• PhD Posters Gallery
• "Pimp my Poster" Flickr Group
• ePosters- An Online Library of Scientific Posters
• Faculty of 1000 Poster Repository View 1000s of posters from the Biology & Medicine fields
• Example of Bad Scientific Poster (from Colin Purrington website)
• << Previous: Getting Started on your Poster
• Next: Designing an Effective Poster >>
• Last Updated: Nov 10, 2023 11:50 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/posters