It’s a simple thing.  Against white paper, black text is easiest to read.  Against a solid dark background, light colored text is harder to read. Anything in between, like blue text against a grey background, is going to be very hard to read.

Poster Template

I know, it’s not very creative to put black text on a white background. Your poster is supposed to grab attention, after all! It is also well studied that color attracts the eye much better than black and white. In fact, studies show that color ads in magazines are six times more memorable than black and white ads. So, you need color. But I would argue that your text is the wrong place for it.

You can have a colorful background, colorful charts and graphs, color pictures, and a colorful title block.  Just don’t make your poster hard to read! Here’s an example using one of our templates and some colorful pieces to make it eye catching.

When someone goes by your poster, they give the title about two seconds of their time. If it interests them, they’ll come by and read more, and hopefully talk to you.  It is therefore very important to make the title large enough, and with enough contrast to the background, to be easy to read.  The title should be at least 96 point type, which is 1″ tall. Text in the body of your paragraphs should be at least 24 point, or 1/4″ tall.