Designing Effective Posters: Classes and Tutorials
Learn how to design and publish effective posters. This guide includes sections on design elements, the poster design process, and using software to create posters.
Created by Health Science Librarians
Poster Design Online Resources
- Designing Conference Posters by Colin Purrington"Gratuitous advice on how to prepare posters for scientific meetings, research conferences, and similar gatherings of nerds who want to share their stuff on really big pieces of paper. With apologies, this page is really long, but should give you the basics on how to make your poster and how to present it without embarrassing yourself."
- Flickr: Poster SessionsColin Purrington of Swarthmore College states, "[This] group has examples of great and terrible posters, though they are not labeled as such." Critique these designs to boost your poster design skills, and to get ideas on how to lay out your own poster.
- A Practical Guide to Designing a Poster for a PresentationA practical guide to designing a poster for presentation. David J. Briggs. Nursing Standard. 23.34 (Apr. 29, 2009) p35.
- Poster & Presentation Resources from the UNC Graduate SchoolA very comprehensive set of resources both for design/creation of posters and for preparing and giving the actual presentation.
- Poster Perfect: How to Drive Home Your Science With a Visually Pleasing PosterThe Scientist's Edyta Zielinska provides advice for making "concise, well-presented, and eye-catching posters" by talking to "researchers who have sharpened their scientific pitches, as well as to graphic designers who understand the rationale behind color, font, and layout choices."
UNC Media Design Services
Want some personalized help? Need a second set of eyes to evaluate your poster?
HSL librarians provide media design education and can help you learn about educational media design and technology. We are happy to help you plan and create your poster project, or to provide constructive criticism for a draft of your project in person or through e-mail.
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Schedule a ConsultationKnow that you'll want a one-on-one in person consultation? Fill out this form and let us know what times and days you'll be free to meet.
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Schedule a ClassFor faculty members or instructors: HSL staff would love to teach a poster design session to your students. Fill out this form and we'll get back to you as soon as possible to discuss your needs.
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Learn more about the UNC Media Design LabInterested in incorporating multimedia or social media into your scholarly and professional pursuits? If you want to use video, images, audio or other media in an assignment, presentation, publication, poster, or web site, you can get help from staff at the Media Design Lab
Need someone to review your poster ASAP? Just contact HSL via chat or Ask Us and let us know! You can send us your poster file and a librarian can provide quick feedback virtually.
Software Support
If the software you're using to design your poster is stumping you, check out the following webpages.
Note: if you are using software that is older than the most recent 2 versions, we recommend upgrading.
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PowerPoint Training (Microsoft Office Support)Windows/Mac, iOS, Android, more. For 2007 through 2016 MS Office versions.
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MS Office Training CenterIncludes:
• For Office 2007-2016 versions
• Office 2016: What’s New & Improved, 2016 Quick Start Guides, 2016 Training
• Learn by app or service
• OS: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android... -
Indesign Support Center (Adobe)Working with InDesign and stumped about a feature? Adobe's Indesign Support center has video tutorials related to InDesign, as well as a list of the top troubleshooting issues that InDesign users have experienced.
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AdobeTV: InDesignA collection of video tutorials on Adobe InDesign.
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