Anytime you are submitting a poster or presentation proposal for a conference, ensure that your content and especially title, align with the theme.

For example: the theme for the North Carolina Counseling Association's 2024 Conference is “Change, Adapt, or Lose: The Imperative for Advocacy in Counseling.”

Be sure to include the basics on your poster:

• A title/subtitle that clearly conveys your topic yet is also engaging and draws someone in.
• Your name(s), contact information and affiliation. Consider using an Appalachian State logo.
• Content broken into smaller, scannable sections. If presenting original research, include hypothesis, research question(s), method, and conclusion.
• Citations of your sources.

Headings & Text

• Use 24 font or larger. Title should be twice the size of regular text.
• Poster should be readable from 4 ft. away.
• Use easy to read typeface: Ex: Times New Roman, Georgia, Bookman

Organization

• Use columns, sections headings and blocks of text
• Make use of white/blank space

Graphics

• Must relate to poster content. What story is it trying to tell?
• Must be good quality. Avoid fuzzy or low resolution images.

Patterning

• Use a repeating color, font, or theme to unify poster content.

Adobe Creative Suite - available on all the Macs & PCs on the lower level of Belk Library. Ask for help at the Technology Checkout desk if you need it.

Powerpoint - Set your poster size first! Go to Design - Page Setup, Slides sized for: custom. Choose your orientation (usually portrait) and height/width. Make sure you know what the size requirement is for the conference!

Large format printing is available at Belk Library. Choose matte printing for a poster presentation. Please plan ahead and give enough time for printing.

Brand Guides & Resources

Logos

Photo Catalog

While we can find thousands of images online, we need to ensure that we only use those that we have permission to use.  Look for those with creative commons licenses or ask the creator for permission.

Google Image Search: Along the top of the results from a google search, click on images. The click on "Tools" - "Usage Rights" - "labeled for reuse".

Here are some other places to find images that you can legally use:

Just like a research paper, a poster must include citations of articles you reference as well as images you use.

Journal Article:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Baniya, S., & Weech, S. (2019). Data and experience design: Negotiating community-oriented digital research with service-learning. Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement, 6(1), 11–16. https://doi.org/10.5703/1288284316979

Example from Owl Purdue

Image Citation:

Reference Structure:

Author last name, First initial. (Publication or creation date). Title of image [Type of media]. Name of publisher, museum, or university. URL

Reference Entry:

Stone, M. (2020). [Picture of fireflies at night in Congaree National Park] [Photograph]. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/06/synchronous-fireflies-rare-look-congaree-national-park/#/fireflies-congaree-1994.jpg

Note: In the above example, the photograph is not presented with a title. For untitled photographs, a description of the photo is included inside of square brackets in the place of the title. 

Example from EasyBib