Do you consider election campaign leaflets to be dated and old-fashioned? Then think again! Election leaflets – small, pocket-sized flyers that ensure candidates stick easily in voters’ memory – remain a fundamental and effective form of political communication during election campaigns!

A face, a logo and sometimes a slogan on a piece of paper are enough to ensure voters remember the candidate, through a tangible object that is either handed out in person or distributed by a candidate’s team of supporters.

For this reason, election campaign leaflets continue to play an important role, helping to reinforce any online or social media work. Not least because,lest one forget, not all voters have a social media presence…

For all these reasons, today we’re going to explain how to create an election leaflet, in four steps.

We’ll look at:

1. The main elements to include in election campaign leaflets
2. The optimum size for election leaflets
3. A list of software to create leaflets free of charge
4. Some advice on printing election leaflets

So, without further ado, let’s dive straight in and start figuring out how to make an election leaflet!

Designing a good campaign leaflet – the main things to include

Are you wondering how to create an election leaflet and which features to include? There are just a few classic and indispensable elements to add to election campaign leaflets. Many political communication professionals advise limiting yourself to just these few contents, and not adding other things that could distract readers, such as long-winded texts, extracts from poems or additional photos.

The key elements to include in an election leaflet are:

• A photo of the candidate: if possible a close-up or head-and-shoulders shot. This is the most essential part of the leaflet, as it creates a sense of closeness and personal contact between the voter and the candidate.
• The candidate’s full name: the surname is the most important part, and so can be written in a larger font.
• The party logo: this can be quite small – its aim is simply to ensure the voter puts their X in the right box.
• A slogan: this is not essential, but slogans are a classic feature of election leaflets. They can help to make the candidate more memorable, and provide a concise way of expressing their point of view. It’s worth hiring a political communication expert or copywriter to come up with a good selection of words.

If you opt for double-sided election campaign leaflets, on the other side of the flyer you can add further information, or simply a copy of the front – anything to persuade recipients to vote for the right person!

What size should election campaign leaflets cards be?

Election campaign leaflets should be easy to slip into a pocket or handbag. Therefore, if you’re thinking about producing one, remember to keep things on a small scale! Don’t produce anything too big – there’s no need to add much more than the four elements we looked at in the previous paragraph.

Software for creating free election campaign leaflets

A screenshot of Canva, a program for making free election leafletsNow let’s move on to the next step in our guide to making an election campaign leaflet: working out which software is best for creating your materials free of charge.

Here are three options, all very different, for you to choose from:

·         Microsoft Word – a program for creating free election campaign leaflets that we all use day in, day out. Simply set the correct page size (Layout>Size), choose from the hundreds of fonts available, select the colours, and import and modify images as you see fit. Don’t forget to save the file in PDF format when you’ve finished, so it comes out correctly when printed.

• Canva – a piece of software that is ideal for creating free election leaflets online! The strong point of this program is its extremely intuitive design and the fact you can use it without having to install anything on your PC. Once you’ve registered (free of charge), simply create a new document and choose the size you require. Then you just need to add the various parts of your flyer – you can choose from hundreds of layouts, graphics, fonts and backgrounds, many of which are free, with others only costing a few pounds. It’s easy to move all the different elements around – you don’t need to be an expert in graphic design software – and you can create combinations of different fonts and colours. Once again, remember to download the file in PDF format for printing!
• Scribus – a program for creating professional-looking and free election campaign leaflets. The interface may seem complex, but this translates into greater precision in the layout. The options offered by the software include colour management for printing (including Pantone colours), thereby reducing the difference between the colours you see on the screen and the final printed version, and a classic grid display. There’s also an extremely handy wiki guide to this software, helping you to explore in depth the infinite possibilities it offers.

Once you’ve chosen the program for making free election leaflets that best suits your needs, you can learn more about it by reading our guide to the best free desktop publishing software.

Printing election leaflets

We’ve reached the final stage in our guide to creating an election leaflet – printing! This is where you get to produce the final objects you will hand out to potential voters.

 If you decide to use the services offered by Pixartprinting, visit this area of the catalogue, where you will find various sizes of leaflet that will help you create the perfect election campaign leaflet to persuade people to vote for you.

Good luck with your campaign!