{"id":5973,"date":"2025-05-23T15:09:41","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T15:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/?p=5973"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:09:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T15:09:41","slug":"graphical-abstracts-great-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/graphical-abstracts-great-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Graphical abstracts: great advertising?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was at an interdisciplinary professional development session last week exchanging tips on how early career academics could promote newly published journal articles to various audiences, academic, policy and even \u2018normal people\u2019.<\/p>\n

In a lull in the discussion of social media and industry newsletters I said, \u2018And you could of course always create a graphical abstract as well.\u2019<\/p>\n

Silence, and everyone turned towards me with blank, uncomprehending looks, finally someone said: \u2018I\u2019ve never heard of it, what\u2019s one of those?\u2019<\/p>\n

After some discussion, it appeared that in the social sciences, the arts, and to some extend engineering, graphical abstracts are not well known or used yet. However, when I explained they all thought it sounded like a good idea and when I was thinking about what to write for this blog post I decided that it might be a nice topic to explore.<\/p>\n

So, what is a graphical abstract? <\/strong><\/p>\n

A graphical abstract is a visual summary of the main message of a paper. They can be aimed at more or less knowledgeable audiences but are generally geared more towards public communication than the visual abstracts<\/em> often used in medicine or chemistry which tend to be very technical and jargon laden.<\/p>\n

They are not designed to convey the same amount of information as a paper\u2019s actual abstract but are rather supposed to act as a hook that attracts people\u2019s attention and encourages them to read the textual abstract or even (if you\u2019re very lucky!) the paper itself, rather like a post for a film or the front page of a newspaper.<\/p>\n

\"Two
From Asterix & Obelix\u2019s Birthday: The Golden Book by R Goscinny & A. Uderzo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So what? Or but why? <\/strong><\/p>\n

A graphical abstract should answer the \u2018so what?\u2019 question beloved by my PhD supervisors when I presented them with an interesting finding. But why<\/em> is this research relevant and why should I care?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

For example, I\u2019m currently doing a meta review of the global academic literature quantifying carbon reduction potential in retrofit. The \u2018so what\u2019 could be answered in perhaps this case by something like: \u2018we\u2019re identifying current gaps and trends to help researchers plan future research that supports climate action.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s graphical\u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

A graphical abstract should be just that, graphical, it needs clear eye-catching graphics that help to tell the story. You should be able to instantly get an idea of what it\u2019s about in a single glance. It can be supported by some words but not hundreds of them! Guidance I\u2019ve seen suggests around 50-70 words maximum, not including a title, if it is clear and understandable, and a link to the full paper.<\/p>\n

There are of course a lot of design principles that can be bought to the creation of a graphical abstract around golden ratio and rule of thirds, colour palettes, negative space and so on. I\u2019m now going to talk through the process of designing a graphical abstract that I created back in December for a recently published paper on informational barriers to retrofit. I\u2019m not claiming it\u2019s the best way to do it, but it worked for me.<\/p>\n

Step one: what is the message? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I started off by thinking about the message I wanted to get across, and for this began by revisiting the highlights section that the journal had asked for:<\/p>\n

Highlights<\/u><\/p>\n