What is an academic poster?

Posters are first and foremost a visual communication to provide information to viewers. An academic poster is a visual tool for the communication of a project or as a way of raising an awareness, inciting a discussion or a debate.

What is an academic poster?

Posters are very different to essays. They are designed to capture the attention of people passing by and deliver your message on a single page in a brief and concise manner.

At university, you will write numerous essays. Perhaps you’ve done a few already and you’re familiar with the format of essay writing; they require a beginning, middle and an end, they are made up of a series of paragraphs which read in a logical order across many pages to communicate your research and build a discussion around a topic.

So what are the key differences?

Posters

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One page of information, communicated through brief blocks of text, words or statements and imagery.

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Its purpose is to capture the attention of a passerby and communicate a clear message quickly.

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It has free use of colour, font and composition to communicate its message effectively.

Essay

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Multiple pages of information are communicated through a series of paragraphs with an introduction, middle and conclusion.

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Its purpose is to give detailed information through a thorough investigation and discussion of a topic.

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It has a standard format for text features such as font style, font size, line spacing and word count.

Academic posters are a representation of your work, communicated through text, visual imagery, infographics and/or tables and graphs to summarise your project and its conclusions. Information is laid out in sections, using headings and subheadings to draw the attention and eyeline of the viewer.

Unlike an essay, there is no standard format to an academic poster and therefore you have the freedom to play with colour, composition and the style in which you’d like to display your information. Later on, we’ll look at how you can make these decisions to find the best visual design for your project.

Academic poster design

When creating an academic poster, it’s important to consider both the message you want to communicate and your audience. It helps to first think about what your poster is being used for, as this will give you a starting point for your audience too.

For example:

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Are you trying to incite a debate between specific parties or on a singular topic? Who would be interested in this debate and topic?

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Are you trying to showcase the journey of a project and its outcome? What was the topic of your project and your academic field of study?

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What type of person do you want to see your poster?

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What do they want to know about and why?

Check your assignment criteria and the marking grid to define the information that should be included on the poster. You will no doubt have a lot of information that will need reducing to communicate clearly and concisely on one page.

You will need to include references, the same as you would for an essay.

There will be much less space than in essays so make sure you are choosing the best references and try not to go into too much detail, unless needed, due to space being a luxury. You may be asked about the references you have included as well so make sure you are confident in what is on there.

Before presenting make sure you do a final proofread, check all your references are correct and if you have used any images, include the course of where you found them, including if they are your own.

(edited 11 months ago)

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