Poster templates built around one figure

What these designs are for

Use one of these when a reader who looks only at the picture still gets the point. They suit imaging, microscopy, materials work, field photography and any result that is obvious on sight, and they trade written space for figure space, so the text has to be tighter than on a data board. Cards are rendered with the gallery's own sample study, so the captions, charts and author lines inside them are invented for the preview.

What these layouts have in common

All eleven carry a logo, a title, an author block, section slots, a protocol block and at least one figure block. Ten carry a reference block, nine a list slot and nine a QR code, while only four carry a stat block, which is the clearest structural difference from the data boards. Across the eleven there are fifteen chart figures and five image figures. Written sections run from three to five per board, so plan on three or four short sections rather than the six or eight a text heavy board would take.

Which one to pick

Count the figures. One dominant chart takes the hero figure board, which gives it about half the page with its caption underneath. Three images of equal weight take the image mosaic, which runs them across the top at the same size. One wide site or laboratory photograph takes the photo band. A single headline finding stated in very large type takes the billboard board. If the work needs a formal register, the framed classic and journal style boards place their figures inside a traditional column grid, and the typographic board keeps one chart in an otherwise quiet page of text.

What conferences usually require

Printers publish the standard board sizes, and A0 at 841 by 1189 millimetres sits alongside A1, the American 36 by 48 inch board and metric sizes such as 70 by 100 centimetres. University guidance focuses on legibility instead: readable from about three metres, and around 300 to 800 words on the board. A figure led board passes the first test more easily than a text board and fails the second only if the captions sprawl, so keep each caption to a line or two and let the figure carry the argument.

Which image slots can actually be filled

This is the one trap in the set. Seven image figures across the image mosaic, the photo band, the sidebar rail and the wide image mosaic have no upload control in the inspector and are skipped by image generation, so they cannot be filled and will keep their placeholder. Before you commit to a board because of its photography, open it and check that the image blocks you need are the ones that accept a file. Chart figures are unaffected, and the ten chart kinds behave exactly as they do on a slide or a flyer.

Finished examples

• Materials science poster

Questions people ask