Credits and Acknowledgements
With many thanks to Lindsay Anderberg at NYU for permission to borrow wording from her libguide: http://guides.nyu.edu/posters
Design Tips
Here are some additional resources for designing posters:
Consider using a template
There are many templates available for download. Here are a few links:
Software to create posters:
PowerPoint: A popular, easy-to-use option. This is available on all of the computers in the Christopher Center. (Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint).
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign: Feature-rich professional software that is good for posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive.
Open Source Alternatives: OpenOffice in the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its PowerPoint alternative). Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products. For charts and diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts. A complete list of free graphics software.