Engineering of the highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals through synthetic chemical structural modification has been the most widely used method to tuning optoelectronic properties in conjugated polymers. The electronic, thermal, optical, and physical properties can be tuned and exploited for optimization of optoelectronic devices. Through copolymerization of donor and acceptor type conjugated monomers, the frontier orbitals of four polymers were tailored. Through this synthetic engineering, the relationship between structural features, frontier orbital tailoring, and changes in optoelectronic and physical properties are discussed. Spectroscopic, thermal, and electronic analysis of the polymers indicated that polymers containing carbazole monomer moieties gave overall improved optoelectronic properties, but higher band gaps (2.61 and 2.18 eV) in comparison to their phenyl-based counterparts. This result is attributed to the higher electron density of the carbazole than the terephthaldicarboxaldehyde, and the possible deviation from planarity in the polymer main chain due to possible steric hindrance of the branched substituents. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.