About
How to Create Effective Visuals for Better Communicating your Science
Effective visual communication is a cornerstone of science dissemination. Yet, creating visuals that accurately and compellingly convey complex scientific data is a significant challenge many researchers face. This course provides practical design principles and a clear workflow for turning scientific content into clean, audience-appropriate figures, slides, posters, and graphical abstracts.
Alongside core concepts (audience, hierarchy, colour, typography, simplicity, and accessibility), we will include live demonstrations in commonly used tools (e.g., PowerPoint and Canva) and an extended hands-on exercise with time to create, refine, and receive feedback on your own graphical abstract.
Programme
- The importance of visuals in science communication: impact, comprehension, and credibility
- Core design principles (layout, hierarchy, spacing, alignment)
- Audience analysis: tailoring the message and level of detail
- Colour, typography, and accessibility (including colour-blind friendly choices)
- Simplicity and clarity: decluttering charts, figures, and slide content
- Storytelling with visuals: narrative flow across slides, posters, and abstracts
- Inclusivity and accessibility checks (readability, contrast, and legibility)
- Software and tools: practical workflows in PowerPoint and Canva (with an optional overview of specialist tools)
- Ethical considerations in visual communication (accuracy, transparency, and appropriate image use)
- Creating effective presentations and posters: templates, consistency, and exporting for different formats
- Extended practical exercise: design and refine a graphical abstract on a pre-selected paper, with structured feedback and time to iterate
Q&A
This course is for anyone who needs to write medical communications (manuscripts for peer-reviewed medical journals, congress abstracts and posters, blog posts, or any other text for specialized or non-expert audiences), such as medical advisors, scientific writers, medical writers, medical liaisons, scientific communicators, researchers, clinicians, and medical information professionals.
Participant experience
No prior experience in graphic design or visual communication is necessary. This course is designed for those who are new to visual communication in science, as well as for individuals looking to refine their skills.A general familiarity with scientific communication is helpful but not essential.
Interactive workshop combining short teaching segments, live tool demonstrations (PowerPoint/Canva), and an extended practical session to create and refine a graphical abstract, followed by group discussion and feedback.
Lecturers
Arianna Ferrini
Dr Arianna Ferrini is a freelance medical writer and science communicator. She holds a PhD in Tissue Engineering and an MRes in Biomedical Research and Cardiovascular Sciences from Imperial College London (UK), an MSc in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of Florence (Italy). She is the Director of Communications of the Association of Italian Scientists in the UK (AISUK) and the chair of the European Section of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS-EU). She holds a certificate for “Writing in the Science” from Stanford University (USA), a “Foundational Skills for Communicating about Health” certificate from the University of Michigan (USA) and a Diploma in Editing and Proofreading from the Centre of Excellence (UK). She has published more than 10 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals such as the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Advanced Materials.
After 12+ years of biomedical research experience in the UK, Italy and the USA, in 2020, she translated her technical knowledge and passion for communication into solutions for the medical and scientific community and the wider public. She specialises in Medical Education and works with clients worldwide, offering independent medical writing and science communication consulting services to businesses and individuals that want to capture valuable and meaningful insights from scientific data and spread the message to ultimately translate new research findings into healthcare solutions. Her clients include Johnson & Johnson, Langland, OLM Diagnostics, EPG Health, Regeneus, FirstWord Pharma, Editage and Edanz. As part of her work, she delivers interactive workshops and webinars to academic institutions and organisations covering scientific writing, publication processes and science communication strategies for different audiences.
Online Training – 1 module
15 October 2026 from 10:00 am to 12:45 pm and from 2:00 to 4:15 pm CEST
Few days before the online training you will receive all details about the connection.
The course will proceed with a minimum number of participants. Should this number not be reached the registered participants will be notified one week prior to the commencement of the course.
Early Bird: € 575,00* (until 24 September 2026)
Ordinary: € 765,00*
Freelance – Individual – Academy – Public Administration: € 415,00*
* for Italian companies: +22% VAT
The fee includes: tuition, organizational office assistance, teaching materials and attendance certificate that will be sent after the training via e-mail.
At the end of the training, you will be able to
Online interactive training on Zoom platform.
LS Academy will provide the access link to the virtual platform a few days before the training.
