Steps of planning your poster

Consider your message:

• The title needs to be brief and explicit.

• The goal is to convey a clear message and support it with a compelling combination of images and short blocks of text.

Consider your audience:

• Colleagues?

• People in fields closely related to yours?

• People in unrelated fields?

*A poster needs to speak to all of them!

• Provide context.

• Use plain language.

• Avoid scientific jargon or acronyms.

• Interpret the findings so that everyone can understand them.

Keep your focus on the topic:

• Stay focused on the message.

• Keep it simple – leave out unnecessary details.

• Keep text simple and sentences short.

Other considerations:

• When do I need to have the poster finished? What is the deadline?

• How large is the poster? How much room do I have for the designs?
  The NWP Learning Commons has a large format printer with a 24" wide paper roll for printing. If you plan on printing your poster there, your poster can be 24" tall and as wide as you need it to be (preferably not more than 48").

• How much does it cost?
  The NWP Learning Commons charges $1.00 per 1 foot when printing on the large format printer.