What is it?
Academic posters are used to communicate your ideas and knowledge in a visual, creative and direct way. They are often looked upon as short essays however, they are not just a chopped-up essay. Academic posters could be seen as closer to an extended abstract with all the information available at a glance; the poster allows the information to be presented in a way that is not merely left to right, in paragraphs.
Why do I need to learn this?
Posters may be displayed at conferences, within departments, or publicly. Creating a poster demonstrates your digital literacy skills and that you can be clear and concise in your writing. Delivering a poster demonstrates your presentation skills as, academic posters may be used to present your findings, a little like a static PowerPoint. It may be the poster conveys the information and you answer questions on it. Therefore, the poster needs to be concise; the wordcount for a poster may be lower than expected from an essay but this is offset by the time taken in creating and designing the poster so allocate enough time to it. As the name suggests, the poster is an academic one, it still needs to be correctly referenced!
How do I create an academic poster?
Once you have decided upon a topic, sketch out your poster to visualise the layout before you begin writing. Think about how many words you might need for each section, remembering to be concise; posters are visual, and you want to draw in your audience’s attention. Assume that your poster will be in competition with other posters so will need to stand out. Eposters.net has a range of academic posters to give you an idea of what one should look like.
A poster can be created on PowerPoint or Publisher or, Canva is another option, it is a graphic design site with thousands of custom templates, stock images, easy-to-use editing features. The Canva design school has helpful information on a range of design aspects including the Canva typography guide The poster should have a strong visual aspect. Import graphs, charts and tables from Excel and use images. Published images, however, are subject to copyright law, so you can’t just use any image find on the internet. Though, demonstrating you can a correctly cite and reference a range of media will gain marks. See our Copyright guide for help on the use of images. Pixabay and Unsplash are sources of copyright cleared images.
Colour is also very important. Colour can set a tone; scientific posters don’t tend to be bright pink! Blues and greys for example promote a calmness and stability. It is possible to delve into colour theory. For example, complimentary colours can be found on the opposite side of the colour wheel, monochromatic colours are those within the same segment, whereas analogous colours are 3 colours from adjacent segments. Look at most posters or infographics, the majority use 2-3 colours, this does not over complicate the poster.
The library MFDs can print up to A3 size, larger than this will require professional printing. This can be done by submitting files online via the Derby Digital Hub but please allow at least a week to 10 days turnaround for work to be completed.
Below are a few tips for creating a poster: