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Posters and Presentations: Designing your poster

Design Tools

JCU have a number of campus-wide contractual agreements with a range of vendors, which enable the University to provide software to JCU staff and/or students. See Software Supplier Agreements and Offers for more information.

Note: There are many software tools available, and they each have their own pros and cons. Look into each tool and decide which one will work best for your purpose. 

JCU Library has many resources that can help you with your poster design. Try searching for "Academic poster" or "Graphic design" in One Search!

Most programs such as Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe InDesign and Canva have templates you can use. A number of templates for posters can also be found on the internet.

Many are commercial printing services but you can download and use their templates to design your poster without using their printing service.

Save the poster as a PDF to get rid of any watermarks, company logos or instructions. You can then print them (if necessary) through any printing service. 

LinkedIn Learning has a wide variety of online courses you can complete to sharpen your skills in poster design. LinkedIn Learning is available to all current JCU staff and students. 

JCU Library has many resources that can help you with your poster design. Try searching for "Academic poster" or "Graphic design" in One Search!

ePoster vs Traditional Poster

Final Submission Checklist

Before you submit your poster for assessment, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are your design features highlighting or obscuring your key points?
  • Can you identify your message easily?
  • What questions do you expect or want to get - and do you think your poster will attract these questions?

Get someone else to look at your poster. Ask them:

  • Is it easy to read? What is good/bad about the design?
  • Is it easy to figure out what it is about?
  • What do they think the main message is?
  • What would they want more information on? 

For ePosters:

  • Use multimedia elements that support your content, are relevant and not distracting 
  • Make sure your multimedia elements are not used to replace text - for example, do not refer someone to a video for an explanation of something
  • Make sure any multimedia elements work in your final document
    • Zoom
    • Embedded audio and video
    • Hyperlinks 
  • Save as a PDF

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