How to Create Better Event Posters Using AI Image Generation
John Hartnup explored techniques using prompt engineering to create more distinct and aesthetic event posters with AI, moving away from generic AI visual tropes. He also shared a showcase library demonstrating various art styles applied to identical poster content. As AI image generation becomes widespread, much of the output suffers from a recognizable, repetitive visual style and poor typography. Demonstrating practical techniques to produce varied artistic styles helps creators leverage AI effectively without sacrificing visual quality. A major technical hurdle in AI poster generation remains accurately rendering required text details—such as dates, times, and venue locations—without hallucinating extra text. While changing artistic style prompts adds variety, critics note that an underlying AI uniformity often persists.
## BACKGROUND
AI image generators convert natural language text prompts into visual artwork, but early iterations often exhibit distinct rendering artifacts and default visual styles. Prompt engineering is the practice of refining text inputs with specific design terminology, artistic movement references, and formatting cues to guide AI models toward desired aesthetic outcomes.