Advice on designing conservation science posters

Note: This resource is derived from a web site maintained by Colin Purrington, Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, USA.  His wording has been modified somewhat by Malcolm Hunter and Megan Gahl (University of Maine) to be more relevant to conservation biologists and the poster examples showing different word counts were generated by Megan Gahl.

An overview of the poster concept

A scientific poster is a visual display of figures, tables, and text designed to communicate your research at a scientific meeting.  It is composed of a short title, an introduction to your critical question, an overview of your methods, your major results, and key conclusions.  If all text is kept to a minimum, a person could fully read your poster in 5-10 minutes.

Why a poster is often better than a talk

Although you could communicate all of the above via a 15-minute talk, presenting a poster allows you to interact more personally with the people who are interested in your research.  Posters are more efficient than a talk because they can be viewed even while you are off napping, and especially desirable if you are terrible at giving talks.  And after the conference, you can hang the poster in your home to impress your friends, or you can display it in your departmental hallway so that visitors can admire your work for years to come.

Motivational advice

Design Suggestions

Avoiding Common Mistakes

Presentation Tips

Useful Resources