With less than 5 months to go until the municipal election, I’ve decided to start door-knocking in Ward 5. I plan to interact with every single resident of the constituency (in a safe manner), while also sharing some campaign materials at the doors. Below, you can see the postcard that I will be using throughout this process. As you can imagine, campaign materials of this kind, are much more centered around catching your attention and directing you towards a candidate’s website/social media pages (hopefully this is how you got here). Although I usually use this blog to discuss policy and projects, I thought it would be more fun, this time around, to describe how I choose the colors of my campaign, the slogan and overall “look”. Regardless if we like it or not, an important part of a successful campaign is the aesthetic and in order to better present myself as a candidate, I thought I would share with you my thinking process behind these choices.
Black & Yellow , Black & Yellow , Black & Yellow , Black & Yellow
First things first, let’s discuss the colors. I choose the color yellow not because I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan but because the color yellow has been my favorite ever since I can remember. In fact, I had the same color back in 2017 when I first ran for City Council but in a different shade/texture. Besides my personal attachment, the secondary reason I picked yellow is because it also symbolizes my independent nature as a candidate. Throughout the municipal campaign you will see candidates plastering their material with the traditional colors of blue, green, orange or red, in an attempt to grab the attention of a particular ideological base. Personally, I believe that when it comes to local politics, the less party influence and the less ideological dogma present, the better the discourse will be. Only by focusing on policy and projects that benefit our communities and the city as a whole, can we address the major challenges that we are currently facing. Oh….and I picked black because it offers a nice contrast to the yellow.
You can’t go door to door without key information
The other smaller details that I want to point out are the election date of October 18th and the campaign slogan “Let’s Do It Right!”. This is a call to action, to improve how our city engages its residents and plans its development, two areas where both City Council and city administration can do significantly better. As well, I have incorporated the boundaries of the ward, both on the front and the back of the postcard to help residents better understand the areas that Ward 5 covers. For even more information on these boundaries and the various communities within it, you can check out my “Ward 5” tab on this website.
On the back, like the front, we have the slogan and the election date. Most importantly , you can find my main platform points. For those who want to get a higher level of detail and/or more information on what I mean by these points they can check out my “Platform” and my “Blog” posts where I dive deeper on how each issue can be addressed.
Lastly, at the bottom of the postcard, you can find the numerous ways by which you can reach out and follow me on the campaign trail. Please consider liking, following and most importantly sharing my social media page as it will be the main source of outreach on the digital front.
More curiosity , less voter apathy
Besides the details mentioned above and a so-so picture of myself, there isn’t anything more to the postcard. It is meant to be an appealing introduction , a pocket size map to a candidate’s platform, ideas and solutions. Hopefully, I’ve done enough through this material to grab your curiosity and I hope that throughout the remaining campaign, I will do enough to earn your vote on October 18th.
Tudor Dinca