Creating posters to present scientific data

Font sizes

Less is more

There should be no more than one font size for each text type:
  • Poster title
  • Authors
  • Institute addresses
  • Chapter headings
  • Continuous texts and lists
  • Legends or keys
  • (References)

When choosing and assigning font sizes, it is important to confine yourself to as few carefully chosen sizes as possible. Texts of equal importance are displayed in the same size.

All texts need to be easily readable even from a few meters away and reflect the hierarchy of the structure. So headings should be significantly larger than continuous texts.

There is a minimum size that applies for your text to be legible from a distance: 18 pt.
.

Example: The following information applies to the Arial font, for instance.

Heading in 50 pt

Authors and addresses in 36 pt

Chapter headings in 36 pt

Body text and lists in 24 pt

Keys in 21 pt

References in 21 pt (reduced to 18 pt if necessary)

Tip: The fewer font sizes you use, the tidier your poster will look.
It often seems challenging to confine yourself to just a few font sizes. If you have too much text in one chapter and too little in the next, it might seem to make sense to “hide” this fact with different font sizes. This can seem unprofessional and create the impression that the texts are of different importance, even though they are of equal importance. Too much text in a chapter means that there is too much text. So it is better to reduce the amount of text, simplify sentences or formulate everything as bullet points.



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