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Academic and Internship Posters: Templates and Layout

Graphic design resources to create high-quality posters.

Standard Poster Sizes

  • 36" x 24" – Compact size ideal for smaller events or limited display areas
  • 48" x 36" – Common standard size for most research presentations and symposiums
  • 36" x 48" – Common portrait layout

DO NOT START ON AN 8.5" x 11" SLIDE OR PAGE AND TRY TO SCALE UP LATER

Academic Poster Layout

Common Sections:

  • Title, Name(s), Institution
  • Abstract or Purpose
  • Introduction or Background
  • Methods or Approach
  • Results or Work Summary
  • Discussion or Key Takeaways
  • References
  • Acknowledgments

Internship Poster Layout

Typical Elements:

  • Title and Student Name
  • Internship Site & Logo
  • Learning Objectives
  • Responsibilities or Projects
  • Outcomes & Key Skills
  • Photos or Timeline
  • Lessons Learned
  • Future Goals

Templates and Samples

While templates can be a helpful starting point, use them with caution—especially if your poster is part of a competition or being evaluated for design. Judges may prioritize originality and strong visual communication, so overly generic or widely used templates could work against you.

Always customize templates to align with your content and presentation goals.

Bad Poster Design

Why: 

  1. Too much text
  2. Background image is distracting
  3. Text box backgrounds are dark, which makes text really hard to read
  4. Text box backgrounds are all different colors, for no reason
  5. Text boxes are different widths 
  6. Text boxes not separated from each other by pleasing “white” space
  7. Text box edges not aligned
  8. Text justified, which causes bad inter-word spacing, making it difficult to read
  9. Logos are distracting, useless, crowd title
  10. Title word art distracting, hard to read, juvenile
  11. Title is in all caps abd italicized, which is harder to read and obscures Latin name
  12. Author font and color is too loud relative to other text
  13. Results are presented in sentences instead of visually with charts
  14. Section headers have too much formatting
  15. Inclusion of an Abstract consumes space needlessly

Note: This poster was intentionally designed by Colin Purrington to be a bad poster example 

Good Poster Design

Why: 

  1. Minimal text; uses bullet points to convey the most important content for each section
  2. Background is a simple, light color
  3. Text boxes do not have a separate background color - same as poster background
  4. Text boxes are same size, except for the focus of the poster: Results
  5. Text boxes separated from each other by pleasing “white” space
  6. Text box edges aligned
  7. Text left-aligned
  8. Logos are minimal and placed toward the bottom
  9. Title is in sentence case
  10. Authors and Affiliations are readable, but do not distract from the overall poster
  11. Results are presented visually with charts
  12. Section headers are easy to identify without over formatting