Design+Tips

Basic principles

 * A poster is a //visual// presentation of information and should be designed as such - do not simply reproduce your written paper in poster format.
 * It should be understandable to the reader without verbal comment - someone might look at it while you are talking to another delegate, or while you're in the toilet.
 * Remember, you are trying to catch the delegate's attention.

Creating your poster
You can use Microsoft Word When the poster is designed, you should convert it to PDF for printing, using PDF Creator or Adobe Acrobat. The conversion process can be problematic: edges of words and images may be cut off near to the margins, images may appear degraded or misshapen, poster elements may have shifted and become overlapping. However, by ironing out these problems at the conversion stage, you avoid nasty surprises later when you come to print it out. When the PDF looks good, you can be pretty confident that the printed version will also be OK. Test your poster early, and regularly, by converting to PDF and printing to A4, to make sure you're not storing up layout problems that will be difficult to correct later on.
 * In **Word**, create your poster as a single side of A4. You can always scale it up when you come to print it.
 * Word does not have guidelines as such, but you can get a grid by showing the Drawing toolbar (//View > Toolbars > Drawing//) which will probably appear at the bottom of the screen, then from that toolbar choose //Draw > Grid...// and tick the //Display gridlines on screen// box.
 * In **both applications**, use the Drawing toolbar to add text boxes to the screen. This allows you to control the way the text is positioned on the page.

Content of the poster

 * Make sure the **title** and **author's name** are prominent and eye-catching
 * **Tell a story**: provide clear flow of information from introduction to conclusion

Design suggestions

 * Use all the **space** at your disposal, but do not cram in the content - white space is an important part of the layout, and good use of it can make a poster elegant and arresting.
 * Use **colour** sparingly - limited use of a few colours is more striking than a 'rainbow' approach. Think about why you are using colour; it is especially useful for emphasis and differentiation.
 * Avoid colour combinations that clash (e.g. red on blue) or cause problems for people with colour-blindness (e.g. red and green in proximity).
 * Use white or muted colour background (e.g. pastel shades)
 * The **flow of information** should be clear from the layout; if you have to use arrows to indicate the flow, the content could probably be arranged better.
 * The title text should be readable from 6 metres away - at least 48-point text. (Note that if you are creating your poster in A4 format, to be blown up to A1 format later, the final printed font size will be approximately 3 times the size you are working with.)
 * The body text should be readable from 2 metres away - at least 24-point text
 * Choose a clear font with large inner space (i.e. the space inside the loops of letters such as 'o', 'd', 'p'). Good examples are Arial, Verdana, Georgia or Helvetica.