If this is for a poster session for a national meeting:One big poster (if your school has the capacity to do that kind of printing) is easier to tote around, smaller pictures on a tri-fold or posterboard are easier to edit or throw together at the last minute. If you like to fuss over things until the last minute, you will be better off with little figures you stick onto a posterboard. Make the font larger than you think you need to, keep the graphics simpler than you think you need to, try to include figures, graphs or ANYTHING besides text cause that is freaking boring, have at least one figure that draws people in. Don't make a title that is too cute or funny, they are fun but don't win anything. Check out posters in other disciplines on your campus (yes, the hallway of the lab buildings) for how to set up a poster, but not what to include, that will be specific to your discipline. If you have a choice, present your poster later in the session, the judges remember these better; if this is a meeting with "light refreshments" at an evening poster session, not in the last hour (everybody is too inebriated by then to judge you fairly). Be sure whoever actually presents the poster is sober and able to field stupid/arrogant questions from academic jerks graciously and thoroughly. Snaps if your acknowledgements can actually include a funding source from the NSF, NIH, or any organization that actually paid you money to do whatever it is you are presenting.
If this is a poster for, like, a class: never mind, just got carried away, have fun!
