Guidelines for creating a professional poster for presentation
Clearly state your name along with anyone else directly involved in the project, faculty mentor(s), and title of
the presentation along with your college and affiliation of the University of Minnesota Duluth.
The font on your poster should be able to be read from 5 feet away, and avoid font that is difficult to read.
While a white poster with black font is acceptable, it does not necessarily draw the interest of people at a
conference. Using color is strongly suggested keeping in mind the size and color or the background and font.
State your project, starting briefly, but specifically, with what you researched and what your expected findings
were. This is normally located on the upper left-hand corner of the poster. Make sure all the data on your
poster is self-explanatory, including legends for tables etc. Results are normally listed in the lower right of the
poster; be sure to list any sources of information
Sketch a rough layout of your poster to determine the spacing and size of any pictures, tables, and text. Consult
with your faculty advisor and others to determine if your poster message is clear and concise. Is there a good
balance of text and pictures? Generally speaking, pictures and tables should cover at least 50% of the poster,
text is important but a poster full of text will not necessarily encourage people to read the entire poster. Your
poster should be understandable without additional oral presentation. Remember not everyone viewing your
poster will have the same field of interest, keep abbreviations and acronyms to a minimum. Space is also
important, your poster does not have to be filled from top to bottom with text and figures.
Typically, people will read a poster like a paper, from top left to bottom right; it will help to follow that natural
eye movement and add arrows or lines to clarify the path of your poster. Less is more, adding more text,
pictures, figures, and/or tables can complicate the presentation.
You do not have a long time to grab the attention of people walking by your poster; they may only see your title
and a few key pictures, figures or tables. Engage with those who even briefly look at your poster and draw
them in with a short informative messaging highlighting the main points of your project. The focus of your
poster is to get people to stop, grab their attention, and retain their attention by starting with a brief yet specific
and interesting introduction of your project.
Example of a good poster:
’ example poster taken from www.tltc.ttu.edu