Design effective posters, graphical abstracts & infographics about your research

How to communicate your research visually

Are you ready to turn your scientific findings into compelling visuals? Join this course and learn how to create infographics, posters, and graphical abstracts that are attention-grabbing, easy to understand, and memorable.

We’ll go over important design principles to help you create visual hierarchy, balance, and consistency, as well as show you the necessary tools and resources to produce professional-looking designs. Through real-life examples and actionable tips, you’ll learn how to convey your message clearly. This course will help you avoid common blunders and improve your design skills for more effective science communication. We’ve had many students win awards with their poster!

Design an outstanding poster or infographic & learn the basics of science visualizations for graphical abstracts

You can choose to focus on general design principles, poster presentations or graphical abstracts. We can give this workshop in multiple formats, from an inspiring lecture, to a 3-day course. Our most valued workshops include a feedback session where participants work on their own design and get personal help to improve what they create.

Suitable for everyone: from PhD students and professors, to support staff and project managers. No design skills needed!

English or Dutch

Online or in-house

Suitable for all researchers, from PhD student to Full Professor. No previous experience is needed.
We can tailor each workshop to fit your needs, offering different formats and lengths to suit your schedule.

What you will learn

Write a title that communicates your result, not just your topic, and distill your findings into a clear main message.
Build a story with a clear structure so your abstract or poster is easy to scan and understand.
Apply the design principles that professional designers use:
- Visual hierarchy: direct your reader’s eye to what matters most
- Contrast: make key elements stand out
- Emphasis: highlight your main message without cluttering the design
- Balance: create a layout that feels stable and intentional
- Consistency: use fonts, colours, and styles that work together
- White space: give your design room to breathe
- Colour: use it to guide attention, not just to decorate
- Alignment: create order and structure across your entire design
Icons & Images: Know when icons help and when they confuse, and incorporate images effectively (this includes access to an extensive library of free and copyright-free icons and images).
Turn your data into clear visualisations: how to create graphs that are easy to understand and highlight the most important data.
Make your designs accessible and inclusive so your work is readable for everyone.
Find and use the right tools and free resources, whether that’s Canva, PowerPoint, or Adobe Illustrator*.

*You will not learn how to use design software (although you might get some useful tips). You can work in any tool you’re familiar with, from PowerPoint to Canva and Adobe Illustrator.

See our poster course information leaflet (PDF) for all details about our 2-day workshop.

A workshop by
Liesbeth Smit, MSc

Liesbeth is the creative force behind The Online Scientist. She is on a mission to make science sexy. By combining graphic design and technology, she explores innovative ways for researchers to communicate their work. Since stepping away from her PhD in nutrition science in 2012, she has created dozens of websites, infographics and explainer videos.

A workshop with Liesbeth is guaranteed to keep you alert and paying attention. Her workshops are brimming with practical tips that you can use immediately to create effective and beautiful presentations, posters and graphical abstracts. Her aim is to help you create memorable forms of science communication that grab attention and make an impact.

In an engaging and interactive way Liesbeth managed to keep everyone’s attention online and gave us tools and tips on how to improve your work immensely with simple changes. I’ve now gone on to share these tips with friends and coworkers and would definitely recommend it!

Liesbeth taught me how to use design principles to make science fun and accessible for all, while maintaining the professionalism and scientific detail. An insightful workshop, which is an absolute must-have for scientists of all career stages and disciplines.

Ekaterina Katya Pchelintseva, Imperial College London

David improved his graphical abstract a lot during our workshop:

My thoughts about graphical abstracts have completely changed after the course, everything is important (figures, colors, contrasts, balances…) in order to transform a complex scientific message into something attractive for the readers. I will try to implement all the learned tips on my future designs!

David Pérez, PhD student French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission

This workshop is flexible!

Do you like this workshop, but are you looking for something slightly different? No problem! We offer our workshops in various configurations from inspiring keynote, to interactive sessions and immersive multi-day courses.

We can also combine some workshops to create a full-day program, or fit a narrower time slot by giving a lecture highlighting the most important insights.

Fill out the quote form below to tell us the time you have, the amount of participants and the level of interactivity so we can find a solution.

Science-communication-lecture-Liesbeth-Smit

One hour to multiple day sessions
Small groups up to 12 participants or large audiences
More or less interaction
For all levels: from PhD students to full professors and from support staff to full-on communicators.

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