Draw Your Campaign Poster for the New Year

As we move into the new year I, like everyone else, have been thinking what I want to accomplish. I checked out a few resources, planners, dreamers, and goal setters, and while they were great, I wanted something a little less complicated. So I decided to draw a campaign poster instead.

Since I’m not great at drawing, I used Google’s AutoDraw. It’s been around for a few years, but it seemed appropriate for this year since it uses artificial intelligence to help you draw.

It seems like AI is all I’ve heard about this year. Google trends show that people were doing more searches than ever before in January 2018 for Artificial Intelligence. In my own reading about the brain this year I have seen that AI is being used more than ever to help scientists better understand this organ, how it is organized, and how we think.

How to Draw a Good Campaign Poster

Autodraw is the perfect tool to draw a campaign poster. To you use it you start to doodle what you want to draw and the computer uses an algorithm to learn what you might be drawing. Suggestions pop up at the top of the screen. So, if you are trying to draw a house, a finished house appears, or a few different types of houses, or maybe a few other types of buildings. You click on the building you want and it replaces your doodle. You can change colors add words and save your picture.

It works well for a campaign poster since you don’t have a lot of options and the drawings and colors are simple. A campaign poster is supposed to get its point across in a few words and images. Here are a few other guidelines for a good campaign poster:

• Simple message
• Bold, primary or complementary colors, and a restricted palette
• Images support the words
• Use symbols

To help myself make my poster I asked myself the following questions. My answers follow the questions. I did a year-in-review poster for 2018 and a campaign poster for 2019 so I have two sets of questions and answers:

• If 2018 were a color, what color would it be? Green
• If 2018 were a shape, what shape would it be? An octagon
• If 2018 were a word, what word would it be? Waiting
• If 2018 were a building, what type of building would it be? House
• If 2018 were something from nature, what would it be? Tree
• If 2018 were a vehicle, what would it be? A scooter.

• If 2019 were a color, what color would it be? Gold
• If 2019 were a shape, what shape would it be? Circle
• If 2019 were a word, what word would it be? Yes
• If 2019 were a building, what type of building would it be? Skyscraper
• If 2019 were something from nature, what would it be? Rainbow
• What type of path will get you from 2018 to 2019? Road
• If 2019 were a vehicle, what would it be? A plane.

I took all the information and drew a 2018 year-in-review poster and a campaign poster for 2019. You’ll see that all the answers didn’t make the picture. Some just didn’t fit and others made more sense once I saw how the picture looked.

Using Autodraw was fun because of the objects that popped up as I drew. It gave me new ideas about which items to include that weren’t on my list originally. It was almost like asking Magic 8 Ball to draw my poster for me.

Here is my 2018 Year in Review and my 2019 Campaign Poster:

2018 Waiting Year in Review Poster House with Scooter and Octagonal Window on Door

2019 Yes Campaign Poster, Plane flying over skyscraper toward sun

If You Want to Give Autodraw a Try

After you visit the Autodraw website,  the autodraw tool itself is the second from the top. Once you begin drawing the suggestions will appear on the top of the screen. You can change colors with the color picker. To color items in, select the Fill tool and then the color picker. Have fun!

One other fun thing to try is to write out something in words. For each letter you draw, Autodraw gives you a picture. Select the ones that speak to you and make a picture out of them. This only works if you draw the words, not using the Type tool.

Let me know if you try this. Leave a link to your picture or your images below. You can use your questions or mine. Wishing you the best in the New Year!