Less is More

This is probably the biggest hurdle for first-time poster designers. Your poster should have enough information to get your central message across, but that's all. In order to be easily readable, a good research poster should be around 40% empty space. That's almost half, which seems like a lot, but the visual appeal and readability of a poster is extremely important.

Image from David R. Stong's blog at Penn State University

The colors chosen for a research poster have a huge impact on how readable the content will be. It may not seem like an exciting choice, but black text on a white background is extremely easy for viewers to read. It's best to use dark text on a light background for the body of the poster, using other colors or highlights sparingly.

The number of colors used in a research poster shouldn't be more than 3, though this doesn't include graphs or charts embedded within the contents of the poster. It's best to use colors that are relatively muted, as highly saturated/bright colors are visually distracting. It's also best to consider color schemes (for both the poster and for any associated charts/graphs) that are distinguishable to viewers who are colorblind.