Posters

Posters are often used by academic researchers to communicate their research to audiences of researchers at conferences, or sometimes to the public. You might have spotted posters about research when walking through university buildings – take a moment to have a look at these to help you learn about research in your subject area. 
 
You may be asked to design and deliver a poster yourself, or as a group for an assessment. Academic posters tend to: 

• Have information presented through text, graphs, diagrams, or photographs
• Use clearly defined sections which often follow a process from research question through to methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion
• Give details about the researchers involved so that they can be contacted
• Be around A1 in size, either portrait or landscape

Some assessments may ask you to design a digital poster that will not be printed, so check your assessment guidance carefully. 

When designing your poster, you should think firstly about the audience that you will present to. What are some key messages you want them to know? What is their current knowledge level on the topic?

When designing your poster, you might want to consider some key design principles.

Explore the interactive resource for this topic

Study resource: Poster design top tips resource

If you are a researcher, or staff member, you can find a University of Nottingham poster template in the Brand resources page.

Posters at conferences are often displayed for people to look at during breaks. However, if you are being assessed on your poster you will probably be expected to speak about your poster to an audience, and to answer questions about it. Some students can feel nervous about this, so it might help to think of it as a friendly conversation about your poster, rather than an assessment. 

Explore the interactive resource for this topic

Explore this resource about answering questions after a presentation.

Study resource: Phrases for presentation feedback