Quick start guides to designing posters
- Presenting your research/scholarly activity using posters and presentations - IUPUI Center for Research and Learning
- Resources on academic poster presentations with several helpful links and examples.
- A presentation on how to prepare a STEM Research Poster
- Visuals - Basic Rules for Poster Design
- Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation
Tutorials
- Making an Academic Research Poster with PowerPoint ( Great for beginners!)
- Step-by Step tutorial and design tips for designing effective posters
- Poster design software tutorials (PowerPoint, InDesign, and Illustrator)
- Quick start video using Poster Genius to create a scientific poster
How to Turn Posters into Handouts
- Poster content reproduced as a handout is an effective way to disseminate the poster to a audience at large conferences and meeting. The handout is essentially a mini-poster that audience can take a copy of along with your business card for future connections and follow-ups.
- Make your poster dimensions similar to letter size (NB: 34 x 44 inches is four times the size of letter paper, but you will have to trim the sides of your completed poster). When you print, choose letter size and click the “Scale to fit paper” checkbox. This is a great thing to do just to check your poster for errors before sending it to be printed and to check your font size (if you can’t read it, the font is too small!).
Free Poster Templates
You can find several free poster templates online and once you find a layout you like, you can generally customize it to the color and design scheme you have in mind. A few example of web templates are provided below:
- Scientific poster PowerPoint templates
- Free research poster PowerPoint templates
- Free PowerPoint research poster templates in various sizes and styles
- Free PowerPoint templates for various types of posters
- Poster templates from IU School of Medicine
- Poster templates from Purdue University School of Nursing
Poster Printing Options at IUPUI
For all other schools, first check with your department, since there are other plotter printers on campus that are not advertised on departmental/school websites. Second, contact the above departments to find out if they can print your poster and how much they will charge and do a price comparison with the resources listed above.
Authored by Sarah Lang (January, 2011)
Revised by Terri Tarr (February, 2014)
Revised by Anusha S. Rao (November, 2020)