As long as your poster remains readable, adding color is a great way to draw visitors. The effective use of color can help your poster stand out and, if appropriate colors are selected, can strengthen the tone of your message.
Focus your use of color in non-content areas (e.g., box outline and fill on graphs or charts). This use of color will make your poster pop without making it difficult to read.
Be aware that the color scheme you choose should match the tone of your topic. For example, if your research is more lighthearted, a bright color scheme would tie in well. The same color scheme used with research on a very serious or weighty topic might be a bit jarring for your audience.
PowerPoint has a number of color themes to choose from, or if you want to experiment, resources like those below have user-created and auto generated color palettes that you can use to customize your poster.
Color Resources:
- Design SeedsDesign Seeds blog is a compilation of color palettes and their inspiration
- Canva Color Palette GeneratorWith Canva’s color palette generator, you can create color combinations in seconds. Upload a photo and Canva will use the hues in the photo to create your palette.
- CoolersGenerate or browse beautiful color combinations for your designs.
- Modifying PowerPoint themesIf you don't like the colors of a particular theme, it's easy to apply new theme colors; everything else about the theme will remain unchanged.