Adobe Photoshop Tutorial VIII: How to Design a Magazine Cover

Welcome back Designers! Today, we will learn to make a magazine cover in Photoshop. You certainly must have seen many magazines and their covers and you might have noticed that the most important things about the cover are the catchy headlines, the positioning of text and a major image which is generally related to the main article of the magazine. So, without any further ado, lets jump in straight to the tutorial and learn a simple way to create a good looking magazine cover.

How to Design a Magazine Cover Tutorial

1. Open up a document. Make sure the width is more than the height (that is generally the case with magazines, but you can choose otherwise). 

2. Decide on a theme for the magazine. I thought of making one on Music. After that, decide on the major article of the magazine and search for an image accordingly. As my theme was music, I searched for an image of one of my favourite bands – Coldplay.

3. Add in the image on your clipboard, name this layer as ‘Base’. Resize it according to your liking.

4.  If you want, you can add in a border around the canvas to give it a better feel.

5. Make a duplicate of the ‘Base’ layer. Then go to Filter -> Sketch -> Photochopy. Set the image on Soft Light and set the opacity to 40%.

6. Now add in a gradient on top of these layers. For this, go to Layers -> Adjustment Layer -> Gradient Map. Set an Orange-Violet gradient and set the gradient layer on soft light at 50% opacity.

If you want to add more stuff to the background, its your wish. Since I was content with the result, I moved onto add text. Now as I mentioned earlier, the headlines that you add on your cover, should be catchy.

7. Add in your text, color it and play around with the blending options so that your text is visible. Position your text layers according to your liking.

8. Now decide on a name for the magazine. You can either add this name in a simple way, like you added the rest of the text, or you can add in some effects to it to make it more attractive. The name that I decided was ‘MUZAK’.

9. To achieve a better look for the title text, mask the text layer and remove some parts from both ends of the title in a diagonal manner. (i.e the letters ‘M’ and ‘K’).

10. Use the pen tool to create a diagonal line, named it ‘Diag’, and added it right below the area that I removed from the letter ‘M’. Duplicate this ‘Diag’ layer and resize it to add it under the previous line. Make a triangular shape using the pen tool in a new layer named ‘Tri’ and add it under both these lines. 

11. Merge the three layers (‘Diag’, ‘Diag copy’ and ‘Tri’) and create its copy. Transform this newly created layer and flip it vertically and then horizontally. Drag and place this layer at the area that you erased for the letter ‘K’ (in a similar way as we did for letter ‘M’).

12. Rasterize your title text layer (Right click on the layer and click ‘Rasterize type’). Merge this layer with the diagonal line layers and position your title as per your liking.

Voila, we are done with our magazine cover. This is a very simple way that might come in handy if you ever wish to create a cover for your school/college monthly/annual magazine. Hope you liked this tutorial. I will be back with more tutorials soon (hopefully ), till then keep Photoshop-ing and keep visiting OP.