Graphical Abstract: Examples and Guidelines

A graphical abstract is a single image, usually one panel, that summarizes a paper’s central finding or method so a reader can grasp the study’s message in seconds without reading the full text. CASRAI’s Graphical Abstract dictionary entry covers the core definition, how it differs from an ordinary figure and the text abstract, and the technical specifications of four major publishers. This guide goes further: it walks through the design methodology behind an effective graphical abstract, surveys requirements across a wider set of publishers, and lays out a concrete, step-by-step creation workflow and checklist a submitting author can actually follow.

What makes a graphical abstract effective versus ineffective

The most widely cited design framework for graphical abstracts is “Ten Simple Rules for Designing Graphical Abstracts” by Helena Klara Jambor and Martin Bornhäuser, published in PLOS Computational Biology in February 2024. It is a useful lens for evaluating a draft against, because most weak graphical abstracts fail for one of a small number of recurring reasons rather than a lack of artistic skill.

• 1. Start from one key message, not the whole paper. A graphical abstract that tries to represent every result ends up representing none of them clearly. Before opening any design tool, write down the single sentence a viewer should take away. If that sentence can’t be written, the graphic can’t be designed yet.
• 2. Use consistent pictograms. Icons pulled from different sets (different line weights, different fill styles) read as visually noisy even when each individual icon is fine. Draw icons from a single, consistent source — a repository such as FontAwesome or the Noun Project, or a domain-specific icon set — rather than mixing styles.
• 3. Let data speak through simple chart types. When the finding is quantitative, a plain bar, line, or pie chart usually communicates faster than a schematic illustration. The chart should convey the headline comparison at a glance, not reproduce a full results-section figure with all its axes and error bars.
• 4. Design to the actual dimensions you’ll be given. Most journals display graphical abstracts in a roughly square format online. Sketch within the real aspect ratio the target journal specifies (see the publisher table below) rather than designing freely and cropping afterward.
• 5. Follow a natural reading direction. Arrange panels left-to-right or top-to-bottom for a linear process, or in a circular arrangement for a cyclical one (e.g., a feedback loop or a recurring clinical protocol). A viewer should be able to tell where to look first without a caption telling them.
• 6. Use arrows and proximity deliberately. Arrows should indicate an actual relationship (causes, produces, is compared to) rather than decorate the layout. Grouping related elements close together and separating unrelated ones (a basic Gestalt-proximity principle) does more organizing work than borders or boxes.
• 7. Keep text minimal and jargon-free. Text in a graphical abstract functions as short labels and a legend, not as a restated abstract. Most publisher specifications (see below) cap word count explicitly for this reason — if a phrase requires domain jargon to parse, it belongs in the manuscript, not the image.
• 8. Choose color intentionally, and check it for color-blindness. Color should encode something (a category, a condition, a magnitude) or create contrast/emphasis — not be applied decoratively. Because red-green color blindness affects a meaningful share of readers, avoid relying on red/green alone to distinguish categories; a free simulator (e.g., Coblis) can check a draft before submission.
• 9. Build it in a tool designed for the job. Vector tools (Adobe Illustrator, the free and open-source Inkscape) or web-based scientific-illustration platforms such as BioRender let you scale and edit cleanly at publication resolution; a graphic built in a general slide tool and exported as a low-resolution screenshot is a common, avoidable failure mode.
• 10. Get feedback before, during, and after drafting. Show an early sketch to someone outside the immediate research group — ideally someone who hasn’t read the manuscript — and ask what they think the study found from the image alone. If they can’t answer, the graphic isn’t self-explanatory yet, which defeats its purpose.

In practice, the gap between an effective and an ineffective graphical abstract is almost always one of these ten failure points: too many messages competing for attention, mismatched icon styles, a chart copied straight from the results section, text-heavy panels that require reading rather than viewing, or a layout with no clear entry point. Fixing a weak draft usually means removing content rather than adding it.

Publisher and journal requirements compared

Exact specifications are set by the individual publisher, and often the individual journal, and they change over time — always confirm current numbers in the target journal’s own guide for authors before finalizing a file. As illustrative, currently published examples:

Publisher	Dimensions / resolution	Text limit	File formats	Notes
Elsevier	Min. 1328 × 531 px, min. 300 dpi	No caption or synopsis outside the image	TIFF, EPS, PDF, or MS Office file	Times, Arial, Courier, or Symbol font; requirement is set per journal
Cell Press	~5.5 in square, 300 dpi	Arial 12–16 pt in-image labels	TIFF, PDF, or JPG	Required for most Cell Press titles; a specified list of journals (including Current Biology and Neuron) treat it as optional
Royal Society of Chemistry	~8 cm × 4 cm, min. 300 dpi	1–2 sentences entered separately in the submission system	Per journal submission system	Called a “table of contents entry”; submitted at revision stage
American Chemical Society	Per journal (“TOC graphic”)	No results revealed in the graphic	Per journal submission system	Must be original artwork, not a reused manuscript figure; labeled “For Table of Contents Only”
Wiley	Varies by journal — commonly 5.5 × 5.0 cm or 5 × 5 in at 300 dpi (some titles specify 11.5 × 2.5 cm for a wide format)	Commonly up to ~50 words / ~450 characters, minimum 6–7 pt type	Per journal guidelines	Several Wiley journals explicitly prohibit general-purpose generative-AI image tools (e.g., DALL-E, Midjourney) for the graphic
Springer Nature	Per journal — check the journal’s “Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines”	Per journal	Per journal	Optional for many Springer journals rather than mandatory; confirm per title
PLOS	No single fixed graphical-abstract spec across the PLOS family	—	Per journal figure guidelines	PLOS emphasizes accessibility to broad, interdisciplinary audiences in its own figure guidance

The pattern across nearly every publisher above is the same regardless of the exact numbers: a single-panel, roughly square or near-square image; a hard cap or strong discouragement of free-standing prose; a required minimum resolution around 300 dpi for print-quality reproduction; and, increasingly, an explicit policy on generative-AI image tools. See CASRAI’s generative-AI disclosure statement entry for the related authorship-disclosure obligation, and confirm the current AI policy with the target journal directly, since these policies have been changing quickly.

Step-by-step creation workflow

1. Confirm the requirement. Check whether the target journal requires, encourages, or doesn’t use a graphical abstract, and pull its exact current dimensions, resolution, file format, text limit, and AI-tool policy from its guide for authors — don’t rely on a generic template, since these details genuinely vary by journal.
2. Write the one-sentence key message. Before opening a design tool, state the single finding or process the image needs to communicate (Rule 1 above). If co-authors disagree on what that sentence should be, resolve that first.
3. Sketch the layout on paper or a whiteboard. Decide the reading direction (linear or circular), where the message enters the frame, and roughly how many visual elements are needed. Fewer elements than feels intuitive is usually correct.
4. Choose one icon/illustration source and one chart style. Pull pictograms from a single consistent library; if the finding is quantitative, decide the simplest chart type that shows the headline comparison.
5. Build the graphic in a vector or scientific-illustration tool (Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or a platform such as BioRender) at or above the target journal’s minimum resolution, so it doesn’t need to be re-exported at a different size later.
6. Add minimal, jargon-free labels and check the running word/character count against the journal’s stated limit.
7. Check color accessibility with a color-blindness simulator, and confirm the file format matches what the submission system accepts.
8. Get outside feedback from a colleague who hasn’t read the manuscript: can they state the study’s core message from the image alone in a few seconds?
9. Secure permission for any third-party visual content used in the graphic, the same requirement that applies to any other published figure, and confirm the graphic complies with the journal’s current AI-image-tool policy before final submission.
10. Submit as a separate file per the journal’s system — a graphical abstract is uploaded independently from the manuscript text and the in-text figures, not embedded in the manuscript file.

Common mistakes checklist

• Reusing an in-text results figure directly instead of designing a purpose-built summary image
• Mixing icon styles from multiple unrelated sources
• Embedding a caption, title, or the words “graphical abstract” inside the image itself, when the publisher’s own instructions say not to
• Exceeding the journal’s word or character limit for in-image text
• Submitting at a resolution below the stated minimum, producing a blurry table-of-contents thumbnail
• Relying on color alone (especially red/green) to distinguish categories
• Skipping outside feedback and only having co-authors, who already know the study, review it
• Using a general-purpose generative-AI image tool where the target journal’s policy prohibits or restricts it

Worked examples by common study type

The descriptions below are illustrative composites — generic patterns typical of each study type’s graphical abstract, not a description of any specific published paper — meant to show how the design principles above translate into an actual layout choice.

• Mechanism or signaling-pathway study. A left-to-right or top-to-bottom sequence of three to five icon-based steps (a receptor icon, an arrow into a cell outline, a small-molecule icon, an arrow to a downstream effect icon), connected by directional arrows that represent “activates” or “produces” rather than mere adjacency. A single highlighted element (a different color or a bold outline) marks the paper’s specific new finding within an otherwise-established pathway, so a reader already familiar with the pathway can spot what’s new immediately.
• Clinical trial or cohort flow. A simplified funnel layout — an enrolled-population icon, an arrow to a randomization split, parallel arms shown as two or three parallel boxes, converging to a single outcome icon or a small comparative bar chart of the headline result. Patient counts and eligibility criteria, the detail that belongs in a CONSORT flow diagram inside the manuscript itself, are deliberately omitted; the graphical abstract shows the shape of the design and the headline result, not the accounting.
• Comparative study (Method A vs. Method B, or intervention vs. control). A side-by-side split layout, often with a vertical dividing line, applying the same icon set to two conditions with one clearly differentiated output element (a taller bar, a checkmark vs. an X, a different color) indicating which side the finding favors. Text stays limited to short condition labels, not a restated results sentence.
• Method or workflow paper. A strictly linear, numbered sequence of process-step icons (a sample icon to an instrument icon to a data-output icon), since the paper’s contribution is the pipeline itself rather than a single biological or clinical finding. Numbering or sequential arrows carrying the reader’s eye through the steps matters more here than in other study types, since the order is the message.
• Meta-analysis or systematic review. A funnel or forest-plot-inspired schematic — several small study icons converging into a single pooled-estimate icon or a simplified forest-plot glyph — rather than a reproduction of the full forest plot from the results section, which usually carries too much data density to read at thumbnail size. See CASRAI’s Scholarly Publishing hub for the evidence-synthesis and reporting-format coverage in that cluster.

Copyright and permissions: what you can and can’t reuse

A graphical abstract is not exempt from ordinary copyright and permissions rules just because it’s a summary image rather than an in-text figure.

• Reusing your own published figure. Once a manuscript is accepted, the publisher typically holds either full copyright (under a copyright transfer agreement) or an exclusive license to publish, depending on the journal and its open-access status — so being the original data’s author does not automatically mean you’re free to repurpose an in-text figure elsewhere without checking that agreement. Several publishers go further and prohibit reuse specifically for the graphical abstract on editorial grounds regardless of copyright ownership: ACS, for example, requires original, unpublished artwork rather than a reused manuscript figure, because the graphical abstract is meant to synthesize the paper for someone who hasn’t read it, not repeat a figure written to be read alongside the Methods or Results text. Check both the copyright status and the specific journal’s graphical-abstract instructions before reusing any element of an existing figure.
• Third-party elements. An icon, photograph, diagram, or illustration you didn’t create yourself needs the same permission a manuscript figure would need — see CASRAI’s How to Get Permission to Reuse a Published Figure or Text guide and the Publication permission and Reuse license entries for the mechanics. A Creative Commons license can clear this quickly if the source material is licensed for reuse with attribution, but a plain web image search result carries no such clearance.
• See CASRAI’s Copyright entry for the underlying framework: what copyright protects, how it attaches on creation, and how it’s transferred or licensed in a publishing context.

Design tools and their licensing implications

The tool used to build a graphical abstract carries its own licensing terms, separate from the journal’s editorial requirements — confirm current terms directly with the vendor before relying on any of the following, since subscription and licensing terms change.

• BioRender. A web-based, subscription scientific-illustration platform widely used specifically for its pre-built, style-consistent icon library. Publication rights depend on subscription tier: Academic Individual (student/postdoc) or Industry Individual license holders may publish a BioRender figure only while on an active paid subscription and only if listed as first, co-first, co-senior, or last author on that publication; Academic Lab, Institutional, Industry Team, and Enterprise licenses don’t carry that authorship-position restriction. Each exported figure needs its own Publication License generated through BioRender (not available on the free trial tier), and rights obtained while on an active paid plan persist even after a later downgrade. Confirm current terms directly at biorender.com before submission.
• Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape. Standard commercial (Illustrator, subscription) and free open-source (Inkscape) vector-illustration software. Neither imposes publication-rights restrictions on original artwork created by the user — the licensing question shifts to any third-party assets (stock icons, plugins, fonts) imported into the file, each carrying its own separate license to check.
• Canva. A general-purpose design tool, not a scientific-illustration platform — useful for a simple layout but without a scientific icon library built for this format. Canva’s own content-license terms restrict how certain template elements and stock assets (particularly Pro-tier elements) may be reused or redistributed as standalone assets outside a finished design; review Canva’s current Content License Agreement before using Canva-sourced elements in a graphical abstract intended for commercial-publisher distribution.
• Servier Medical Art. A free medical and biological icon and illustration library licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) — images may be used, adapted (recolored, relabeled, cropped), and redistributed, including in commercial publications, provided attribution is given (Servier Medical Art provides a sample attribution string on its own site). This makes it a common lower-cost alternative to a subscription platform for authors who need a small number of standard biological icons rather than an ongoing illustration workflow.

Accessibility beyond color choice

The design-principle checklist above covers color-blind-safe palettes; two further accessibility considerations apply specifically to a graphical abstract because of where and how it’s displayed.

• Contrast. Text and icon elements need sufficient contrast against their background to stay legible once the image is scaled down to a thumbnail in a table-of-contents listing or search-result card — test the design at the actual small display size the journal uses, not only at the full working resolution.
• Alt text. Because a graphical abstract’s entire function is to convey the paper’s core message visually, a screen-reader user who can’t perceive the image needs an equivalent text alternative. Where a journal’s submission system offers an alt-text or image-description field for the graphical abstract, use it to state the same one-sentence key message the graphic was designed around (see Rule 1 above), not a generic label like “graphical abstract” or a restatement of the figure-caption instructions, which convey nothing about the actual content.

Integrity: what a graphical abstract must not do

• It must not overstate the paper’s findings. A graphical abstract’s job is to make the actual result easy to grasp quickly, not to make the result look stronger, more definitive, or more general than the manuscript itself supports. A causal arrow implying a mechanism the study didn’t establish, or a comparative chart that visually exaggerates a small or non-significant difference, misrepresents the work in the same way an overstated conclusions section would — the same authorial responsibility for accurate representation applies to the image as to the text.
• Image-manipulation policies apply to a graphical abstract’s data elements the same way they apply to an in-text figure. If a graphical abstract incorporates an actual data plot or chart rather than purely schematic icons, the same integrity standards apply: the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) treats deceptive image manipulation as a form of research misconduct, not a lesser or separate category, and COPE’s guidance on inappropriate image manipulation applies regardless of which figure in a submission is affected. See CASRAI’s Image manipulation entry and Scientific Figure Rules for Journal Submission guide for the general standard.

Frequently asked questions

Is a graphical abstract the same as a visual abstract?

The terms are frequently used loosely as synonyms, but a journal’s formal submission requirement is the graphical abstract (or, at RSC and ACS journals, the table-of-contents entry/graphic) as defined in its own author guidelines. “Visual abstract” more often refers to a heavier, multi-panel, template-driven graphic built for conference or social-media promotion after publication, common in medical-journal circles, rather than the official submission artifact itself.

What software should I use to make a graphical abstract?

A vector tool such as Adobe Illustrator or the free, open-source Inkscape gives the cleanest results at publication resolution. Web-based scientific-illustration platforms such as BioRender are widely used specifically because their icon libraries are already scientifically consistent (addressing Rule 2 above) and built for this exact output format. General presentation software can work for a simple layout but is a common source of low-resolution exports if not set up carefully.

Can I reuse a figure from my manuscript as the graphical abstract?

Most publishers explicitly discourage or prohibit this. ACS, for example, requires original, unpublished artwork rather than a reused manuscript figure. A graphical abstract is meant to synthesize the paper’s core message for someone who hasn’t read it, which an in-text figure — built to be read in sequence with surrounding Methods or Results prose — usually isn’t designed to do on its own.

Do all journals require a graphical abstract?

No. Whether one is required, encouraged, or unused is set at the publisher level and often the individual journal level; there’s no single cross-industry rule. Always check the specific target journal’s current guide for authors.

Can I use AI image generators to create a graphical abstract?

Policies vary by publisher and are changing quickly. Some publishers restrict or prohibit general-purpose generative-AI image tools for graphical abstracts specifically (while sometimes still permitting AI-assisted features inside dedicated scientific-illustration platforms), and several require disclosure when AI tools are used anywhere in the manuscript. Confirm the current policy with the target journal before using any AI-assisted tool, and see CASRAI’s generative-AI disclosure statement entry for the related disclosure obligation.

Do image-manipulation and integrity policies apply to a graphical abstract?

Yes, wherever the graphical abstract incorporates an actual data element such as a chart or plot rather than purely schematic icons. A graphical abstract also must not visually overstate a finding beyond what the manuscript’s own results support — the same accuracy obligation that applies to the text conclusions applies to the image.

What license do I need to use BioRender or Servier Medical Art content in a graphical abstract?

They work differently. Servier Medical Art is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0): free to use, adapt, and redistribute, including commercially, with attribution. BioRender is a paid subscription platform whose publication rights depend on your subscription tier and, for some individual license types, whether you’re listed in a qualifying author position on the publication — confirm your specific plan’s current terms and generate the figure’s Publication License directly through BioRender before submission.

Related CASRAI resources

For the core definition and how a graphical abstract differs from an ordinary figure and the text abstract, see CASRAI’s Graphical Abstract dictionary entry. For general figure preparation, resolution, and integrity rules that also apply to in-text figures, see Scientific Figure Rules for Journal Submission and Designing Effective Scientific Figures. For the manuscript’s required prose summary, see the Abstract entry and the Structured Abstract Format guide. For a related visual-summary format aimed at conference presentation rather than journal submission, see Scientific Poster Design for Conferences. For plain-language summaries, another format publishers increasingly request alongside the technical abstract, see Plain-Language Summaries for Research Papers. For CASRAI’s broader scholarly-writing coverage, see the Scholarly Writing & Publishing hub.