Poster Printing

Please note we are now only printing posters submitted through our online system: submit a poster for printing here.

OURS will print posters free of charge in support of research projects for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as, faculty and staff on campus.

We have created a short, easy to use, worksheet for thinking through designing a poster, helpful to a first time poster presenter or someone creating their "hundreth" poster. View the worksheet as a pdf, or here for it as a powerpoint that you can modify for your needs. View the 4 minute overview of video advice.

A proper poster you can be proud of takes many hours to make and proof.  Please see the tips below before starting your poster. For a more detailed listing see this linked to pdf file.

• Objective is to get people's attention, make them want to talk to you, and provide the main message.
• Communicate the research question(s), why you should care about the project, what did you do and the major takeaways.
• Limit yourself to less than 500 words - if you need more detail consider a QR code or tinyurl to bring up the extra information vs. cramming your poster with it.
• Use at least 50 % and ideally 75 % of the space for visuals/graphs/white space.

In order to have your poster printed the following criteria need to be met:

1. Submit the poster through this link, questions can be sent to ours@radford.edu.
2. Submit the poster two weeks before it is needed.  If it is less than two weeks contact OURS ours@radford.edu to see if it can be printed.
3. Submit the file as a PDF of the size desired (i.e. 36x48 inches). If possible design one edge to be either 36 or 44 inches in length.
4. It must prominently display the official Radford University graphic identity (found at www.radford.edu/lockup).
5. It must acknowledge OURS for the printing of the poster. You should also acknowledge anyone who helped you who is not an author and any funding support such as travel to a conference to present this work.
6. Use lighter backgrounds with dark text. Dark colors can use enough ink to make the paper appear bumpy.
7. Typically try to use only 2-3 colors.
8. Font size should be 36 or larger for all text other than references.
9. Bullet points are better than paragraphs.
10. Less is more: words, colors, font types, etc.
11. Leave a 3/4 inch margin.
12. High resolution photos only.

Look at all of your poster at 100% magnification, conference room monitors typically display posters at roughly printed size if you want to see the visual impact before finalizing for printing. If the pictures are blurry, they will print blurry and this is not the fault of OURS.

Remember this is a poster and not a paper or oral presentation and design must reflect this, avoid paragraphs and include graphics!