This document provides tips and guidelines for designing effective posters. It recommends using visual elements like images and graphs to illustrate main points, using large font sizes for titles and author names, and focusing on essential information. It also includes suggestions for font sizes, paper sizes for posters, guidelines for images and copyright, and resources for sourcing images. Finally, it offers information on printing posters at Brookes, including costs and file formats.

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Poster Design
Hints and Tips
Poster Basics
• Visual presentation of information - more than a
reproduction of a written paper in poster size
• Visual can mean more than adding images –
design your poster to catch attention
• Content should be coherent, and should not
need verbal comment
• Planning is important: Create a draft or sketch
with paper and pencil before starting
Good or bad?
• Font size (title and name of author prominent)
• Focus on essentials – there’s no space for too
much detail
• Graphs, tables, images to illustrate main points
• Alignment and grouping of text with images
See
http://library.buffalo.edu/asl/guides/bio/posters.html
(University at Buffalo, New York, Art & Sciences website)

2. 2
Available as pdf in the VLE
‘Poster Design’ Resources
Poster_guidelines_MediaWorkshop
Font sizing (suggestions)
Titles: 86pt
Subtitles: 50pt
Body text: 34pt
Contact details:30pt
How-to Powerpoint
• In PowerPoint, create your poster as a single
slide.
• Set the page size using File > Page Setup
• For an A1 poster: 594mm × 841mm
• Specify this before you start in > File > Page
Setup (there may be an A1 option. You can also
enter the dimensions manually in ‘Page Setup’).
– PowerPoint also allows you to add guidelines to help
you line up the poster elements. Use View > Grid and
Guides... and tick the Display grid on screen box.
How-to PowerPoint 2
Positioning text on screen:
• Use the drawing toolbar to add text boxes to the screen:
Resizing images on screen:
• Use ‘sizing handles’ in corners to maintain proportions,
or better: right click on image for ‘Format picture’

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Paper sizes
A1 paper - 841 x 594mm 33 1/8 x 23 3/8 ins (double A3size)
A2 paper - 420 x 594mm 23 3/8 x 16 ½ins
A3 paper - 420 x 297mm 16 ½ x 11 ¾ ins (double A4size)
A4 paper - 210 x 297mm 11 ¾ x 8 ¼ ins
A5 paper - 148 x 210mm 8 ¼ x 5 7/8 ins (half A4size)
A6 paper - 105 x 148mm 5 7/8 x 4 1/8 ins (half A5size)
Images
Resolution: important for print (150 – 300 dpi)
Images downloaded from the web:
Copyright issues, but also often low resolution (75 – 96 dpi)
Free image editing software: Paint.NET
http://www.dotpdn.com/downloads/pdn.html
Sourcing Images for printing
Still images: Finding and using digital media
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/docs/c
ategory/finding-and-using-digital-media
Flickr – creative commons licence
http://www.flickr.com/
Opportunity to explore other people’s poster:
Poster sessions group on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/368476@N21/pool/

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Printing at Brookes
Getting started with printing at Brookes
https://www2.brookes.ac.uk/services/cs/docs/getting_started/Printing.pdf
Printing Charges:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/cs/useful_info/printing_charges.html
Save as PDF before printing
Save as pdf before printing (only sometimes
necessary, for example file size problems):
Now possible with Office 2007 without
additional software
Free software: PDFcreator
http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator
Expert advise
Don’t forget: your main concern is the
content. However (last ressort): You can
get expert (and friendly) advise regarding
design and print issues at the Graphics
Workshop, Gipsy Lane Campus:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/graphics/