Designing Effective Posters: Classes and Tutorials
Media & Design Center
Poster Design Online Resources
- Better PostersAcademic conference posters are often ugly, with tiny text, confusing layouts, and dubious colour schemes. This blog and book is about making posters informative and beautiful.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
UNC Media Design Center Services
Want some personalized help? Need a second set of eyes to evaluate your poster?
MDC staff 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: MDC 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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SkillfUL Workshops
Does your web presence need a makeover? Want to perfect your photos in Photoshop? Interested in creating your own podcast? The R.B. House Undergraduate Library offers free workshops each semester to teach you these things and more!
SkillfUL Tech Workshops will be held via Zoom or in person at the Undergraduate Library. We will introduce you to some of the latest digital tools that you can use in class, on the job, or for fun!
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Learn more about the UNC Media Design CenterInterested 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 Center
Need someone to review your poster ASAP? Just contact the MDC at mediadc@unc.edu and let us know! You can send us your poster file and we 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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LinkedIn Learning is an on-demand learning solution designed to help you gain new skills and advance your career! It is free for UNC faculty, staff, and students.
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PowerPoint Training (Microsoft Office Support)Windows/Mac, iOS, Android, more.
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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.