Creation of a new poster template

Currently a group of four people (Elena, Pascal, Richard and myself) are working on this topic, too. We are merging the ideas of the class tikzposter and Elena´s class together.

Our aim is to create an easy to handle poster class. It separates the content and the appearance of the poster with the help of themes for every part of the poster. This makes our new class very flexible, because you will be able to combine e.g. themes for the background with different themes for the blocks or the header. Furthermore we support Elena´s idea of callout nodes to point out special information.

Edit from March 10, 2014: Please note that we have already released version 2.0 of the class tikzposter.

Here's one initial version:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[paperwidth=30cm,paperheight=45cm,bmargin=2cm,lmargin=2cm,rmargin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}

\usetikzlibrary{shadows,calc}
\tcbuselibrary{skins,theorems,breakable}

\definecolor{myblue}{RGB}{40,96,139}

\tcbset{
mybox/.style={
  breakable,
  freelance,
  boxrule=0.4pt,
  width=\linewidth,
  frame code={%
  \path[draw=black,rounded corners,fill=white,drop shadow]
    (frame.south west) rectangle (frame.north east);
  },
  title code={
  \path[top color=myblue!30,bottom color=myblue!0.5,rounded corners,draw=none]
    ([xshift=\pgflinewidth,yshift=-\pgflinewidth]frame.north west) rectangle ([xshift=-\pgflinewidth]frame.south east|-title.south east);
  \path[fill=myblue]
  ([xshift=5pt,yshift=-\pgflinewidth]frame.north west) to[out=0,in=180] ([xshift=50pt,yshift=-5pt]title.south west) -- ([xshift=-50pt,yshift=-5pt]title.south east) to[out=0,in=180] ([xshift=-5pt,yshift=-\pgflinewidth]frame.north east) -- cycle;
  },
  fonttitle=\Large\bfseries\sffamily,
  fontupper=\sffamily,
  fontlower=\sffamily,
  before=\par\medskip\noindent,
  after=\par\medskip,
  center title,
  toptitle=3pt,
  top=11pt,
  colback=white
}}

\newtcolorbox{block}[2][\linewidth]{mybox,width=#1,title=#2}

\makeatletter
\newlength\TitleHt

\newcommand\InsertTitle[1]{\gdef\@InsertTitle{#1}}
\newcommand\InsertAuthor[1]{\gdef\@InsertAuthor{#1}}
\newcommand\InsertInstitute[1]{\gdef\@InsertInstitute{#1}}
\newcommand\InsertEmail[1]{\gdef\@InsertEmail{\url{#1}}}

\newcommand\Titlefont{\color{white}\fontsize{40}{48}\sffamily}
\newcommand\Authorfont{\color{white}\LARGE\sffamily}
\newcommand\Institutefont{\color{white}\Large\sffamily}
\newcommand\Emailfont{\color{white}\normalsize}

\newcommand\MakeTitle{%
\setbox0=\vbox{%
\begin{tabular}{@{}>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{\textwidth}@{}}
 \Titlefont\@InsertTitle \\
 \Authorfont\@InsertAuthor \\
 \Institutefont\@InsertInstitute \\
 \Emailfont\@InsertEmail \\
\end{tabular}}%
\setlength\TitleHt{\ht0}%
\addtolength\TitleHt{\dp0}%
\addtolength\TitleHt{1.5cm}%
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
\path[clip] 
  (current page.north west) -- (current page.north east) --
  ([yshift=-0.5\TitleHt]current page.north east) to[out=270,in=0] 
  ([yshift=-\TitleHt,xshift=-60pt]current page.north east) -- 
  ([yshift=-\TitleHt,xshift=60pt]current page.north west) to[out=180,in=270]
  ([yshift=-0.5\TitleHt]current page.north west) -- cycle;
\fill[fill=myblue] 
  (current page.north west) -- (current page.north east) --
  ([yshift=-0.5\TitleHt]current page.north east) to[out=270,in=0] 
  ([yshift=-\TitleHt,xshift=-60pt]current page.north east) -- 
  ([yshift=-\TitleHt,xshift=60pt]current page.north west) to[out=180,in=270]
  ([yshift=-0.5\TitleHt]current page.north west) -- cycle;
\path[top color=myblue!15,bottom color=myblue!65] 
  (current page.north east) .. controls
    ([yshift=-0.2\TitleHt,xshift=-50pt]current page.north east) 
    and ([yshift=-0.7\TitleHt,xshift=0pt]current page.north east) ..
  ([yshift=-1.1\TitleHt,xshift=-90pt]current page.north east)  .. controls
    ([yshift=-0.8\TitleHt,xshift=5pt]current page.north east) 
    and ([yshift=-0.2\TitleHt,xshift=-22pt]current page.north east) ..
  (current page.north east);
\path[top color=myblue!15,bottom color=myblue!65] 
  (current page.north east) .. controls
    ([yshift=-0.2\TitleHt,xshift=-90pt]current page.north east) 
    and ([yshift=-0.7\TitleHt,xshift=-20pt]current page.north east) ..
  ([yshift=-1.1\TitleHt,xshift=-110pt]current page.north east)  .. controls
    ([yshift=-0.8\TitleHt,xshift=-15pt]current page.north east) 
    and ([yshift=-0.2\TitleHt,xshift=-62pt]current page.north east) ..
  (current page.north east);
\node[anchor=south,text width=\paperwidth,align=center] at ([yshift=\the\dimexpr-\TitleHt+0.25cm\relax]current page.north) {\box0};
\end{tikzpicture}%
}
\makeatother

\InsertTitle{The Title of the Presentation}
\InsertAuthor{The Author}
\InsertInstitute{The Name of the Institution}
\InsertEmail{www.stackexchange.com}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
\pagecolor{myblue!30}
\MakeTitle
\vspace*{2cm}

\begin{multicols}{3}
\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[2]
\end{block}

\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[3]
\end{block}
\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[2]
\end{block}

\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[4]
\end{block}
\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[2]
\end{block}

\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[3]
\end{block}
\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[4]
\end{block}
\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[1]
\end{block}

\begin{block}{Title of a block}
\lipsum[5]
\end{block}

\end{multicols}

\end{document}

As Elena mentioned, we released the TikZposter class version 2. You find the class on CTAN. The sources with an issue tracker and a growing wiki is available on Bitbucket.

Have fun creating posters and do not hesitate to give us feedback.