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This is a repository of poster templates for use in creating posters for classes or presentations for Stanford University.
You spend most of a quarter working on a research project for a class. At the end, you're told to turn it into a poster, to display your research and insights. Maybe you've never made a poster before; maybe you have but not at Stanford. The first thing you probably do is search for templates.
A smart move. There should be templates. Most universities offer poster templates, because they guarantee that students & researchers follow university style guidelines. If you search for Stanford templates you likely find this, from an electrical engineering course taught in 2016:
This is a terrible poster template. It fails almost all of the university style requirements.
It uses Bright Red instead of Cardinal Red, the horror.
It uses Helvetica instead of Source Sans Pro, a crime if there ever was one.
This poster template doesn't desrve you. It doesn't deserve to host the weeks of work you labored on this final project. Even if you started the project three hours ago and just found this because it's 10 pm and the poster is due in two hours, this template still doesn't deserve your work.
Despite all of this, when you walk around a Stanford poster presentation, all you see is posters built on this template: a travesty which just keeps multiplying. The horror ends here: We’ve got the Stanford University poster templates for you.
The #1 rule for good design is following the style guidelines. Well really the #1 rule to good design is being a good designer with a good artistic sense, but if that isn't you, that doesn't help. So the #2 rule is get good designers to help you. The issue is experts are busy and don't have time to deal with thousands of requests to help design posters for CS {insert number here}. So the experts make style guidelines. Which beings us back to the #1 rule: follow the style guidelines.
Following this principle, the templates here are designed in accordance with all university guidelines on color, typography, and branding. As such they are only to be used by university students presenting on behalf of the university. We take no responsibility if you use this to present your startup idea to some VC firm and then Stanford sues you for everything.
We currently have four templates in two sizes, 36 x 24 (the standard for most CS classes) and 42 x 36 (the standard for most other things). Each size offers a template with an abstract and a template without an abstract.
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Now you might be thinking: "Wow, this is great, I'm so glad that I have access to awesome, not terrible poster templates. My life is better because of this. This is so cool. Thank you." And you know, you're welcome. It's our pleasure. Really.
You might also be thinking: "Oh my god. This project is due in 2 hours and I'm totally screwed. I've never done a poster. What is it even supposed to be like?" And if that's where you're at this is the section of the page for you.
There are a couple schools of thought on the purpose of a poster, but the general consensus is this: a poster should convey the narrative of a project, what was done, why, and the results.
Different posters from different disciplines will focus on different aspects of that narrative. A Poli Sci poster will probably be light on methods and heavy on results. A CS poster is more likely to be mostly methods and explanations of methods with just one section on results.
But this goal is the goal of all scientific writing. So how should a poster present that narrative differently from a paper?
The difference is a paper is supposed to be everything, whereas the actual poster is only one component of a poster presentation (the other component being you standing there talking and pointing). A paper should lay everything out for the reader. But a poster is designed to be accompanied by a person. When someone is engaging with your poster, you should assume you'll be there to bridge the gaps and explain how things connect. In an ideal world your poster would be a visual aid to your presentation that could also stand on its own (like a paper should), but that's hard; when in doubt, more visuals, fewer words, and if a reader can't really understand the project just from the poster, that's ok.
That's why abstract sections on posters are great! The abstract on the poster can carry some of the burden, outlining the main points you'd make if you were presenting, and highlighting the important results. An abstract can help a poster stand on its own in case, god forbid, you need to go to the bathroom during the 3 hours you're supposed to be presenting.
Ok, so what is the actual advice:
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Text: Your poster should probably have no blocks of text longer than 3 sentences at all outside of the abstract. Any other text should be bullet points. There should be an abundance of figures. Every section should basically be a figure, maybe with a bullets explaining the visual. If there is text, make sure it is big enough to read: 18-24 pt is a good guideline (abstracts are something of an exception, people will be closer to the poster when they read them).
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Figures: You should make your own figures, not just pull from Google. If you've never done that before, you can use PowerPoint, this is a good how-to.
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Color: Colors are great, use lots of color. People are all basically 2 year olds and will look at pretty colors. Try to pull your color pallete from here. That will keep your poster in line with the design guidelines, and keep the theming consistent.
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Space: Don't try to cram too much in. Make sure your sections have room to breathe.
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Alignment: Please align everything nicely. Please. Make sure your columns are clear, your section titles are all in line, your figures are all centered in their columns, etc.
Is this page terrible? Do you hate it? Do you think the advice is bad? Do you think the templates are awful? Do you want someone to yell at? Maybe you aren't mad (unlikely), and just want to help improve this resource.
Send an email to njwfish (at) stanford (dot) edu. We'd love editing on this page, your own poster templates, poster examples (bonus points if you use these templates), or any other contributions.