Poster Guidelines
The Chief Scientist will be giving 10 Poster Awards to posters that adhere to the following principles of good poster design.
- Create an easy-to-read title that conveys your main message and attracts passers-by.
- Use an easy-to-follow, left-to-right organization to expedite the flow of viewers and avoid congestion.
- Organize your material into sections; give each section a sentence heading summarizing it.
- Create a design with lots of white space. People will quickly tire and move on if a poster is crowded with text and figures.
- Use the same artistic style throughout your poster.
- Ruthlessly delete details that don't contribute directly to your main message. "Details as decoration" is a lethal design strategy.
- Lead your viewer graphically through the display. It should be obvious where to begin looking at the poster and how to maneuver through its elements.
- Use type size that is readable from 5 feet away. Title text should be at least 80-pt, headings at least 54-pt, and body text at least 36-pt. If several people gather around your poster, they should all be able to read the text simultaneously.
- Avoid all caps.
- Use text sparingly; use graphics as much as possible to get your message across.
- Use illustrations that are simple and bold. Journal figures are almost never poster friendly without simplification and larger fonts.
- Use consistent fonts throughout the poster. Choose strong-bodied sans-serif fonts that are easy to read from a distance.
- Provide a card or handout with your contact information (name, phone, email).




