A Scientist's Guide to Typography: Choosing Fonts That Communicate

Font choice in academic posters is more than aesthetics — it affects readability, credibility, and how your research is perceived.

Typography is the invisible architecture of your research poster. Done well, it guides the reader effortlessly through your content. Done poorly, it creates friction that makes people walk past. Here's what every researcher should know about choosing and using fonts.

Serif vs. Sans-Serif: The Poster Rules

The age-old debate takes a clear turn for posters: sans-serif fonts win for body text at poster scale. Fonts like Helvetica, Open Sans, or Source Sans Pro maintain legibility at various distances and under imperfect lighting conditions.

Save serif fonts for your title if you want an academic, authoritative feel. Fonts like Palatino, Georgia, or Merriweather pair beautifully with sans-serif body text and signal scholarly credibility.

The Two-Font Rule

Limit yourself to exactly two typefaces: one for headings, one for body text. Use weight variations (bold, semibold, regular) within those two families to create hierarchy. Three or more fonts create visual noise that distracts from your content.

A reliable combination: a bold sans-serif for headings (like Montserrat Bold) with a clean sans-serif for body (like Source Sans Pro Regular). Or for a more traditional look: a serif heading font (like Playfair Display) with a humanist sans-serif body (like Lato).

Size Hierarchy

Your poster needs exactly four text sizes, no more. Title: 72-96pt. Section headers: 36-48pt. Body text: 24-28pt. Captions and references: 18-20pt.

These sizes aren't arbitrary — they create clear visual hierarchy at poster distances. When everything is the same size, nothing stands out. When you have seven different sizes, the hierarchy becomes confusing.

Line Spacing and Measure

Set your line spacing (leading) to 1.3-1.5× your font size. Tighter spacing makes text blocks look dense and uninviting. Wider spacing wastes valuable poster space.

Keep line length between 45-75 characters per line. Too wide and the eye struggles to track back to the start of the next line. Too narrow and the text feels choppy. On posters, this usually means organizing body text into columns rather than spanning the full width.

The Weight of Words

Use bold sparingly and strategically — for key terms, critical findings, or section introductions. When everything is bold, nothing is emphasized. Italic text is useful for species names, statistical terms, or brief emphasis, but extended italic passages are harder to read at distance.

Never use underline for emphasis on posters. It's a holdover from typewriter days and interferes with descenders (the parts of letters like g, p, and y that extend below the baseline).