Research Poster Basics
How to add a title and a logo to your research poster

The poster title is one of the most important elements of your poster presentation. It is the one part of your poster people notice as they walk by and is what may trigger their interest in your presentation.

What to avoid when you add your poster title:

• Huge text, disproportional to the rest of your poster. If it looks strange, it is strange-looking.
• Title too long and text too small to read from 4 to 6 feet away. If your title spreads over three lines it is hard to read. Remember that you need room for your name and affiliations.
  If you are wondering how big the text will be on your final printed poster have a look at the table below. It converts points to inches. You can also use it as reference for all the text on your poster.

• Avoid low quality graphics, i.e. logos taken of your universities website. Graphics taken off the web are not intended for printing. If you can’t find a good logo, look at your university’s identity page (it may require a password) or do a search under Google Images, find the biggest logo you can find and try to keep it at a small size on the poster. Be aware of copyright laws. Because it is on the web it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want with it. For academic/non-profit purposes you are probably safe but it’s better to be sure.
• Avoid using irrelevant images as “eye catchers” or “mood setters”. Pretty baby pictures, serene mountains etc. don’t belong in a scientific presentation unless your poster is about pediatrics or mountaineering.

Have a look at the video. It will give you a good sense of what your poster title should look like. If you need more space you can make the text a bit smaller but try not to make it any bigger. The video also demonstrates how to copy and paste your text from another document onto your poster template and some basic formatting techniques.

This video does not require audio. Click on the icon to enlarge

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