On the Cover of Rolling Stone: Magazine Cover in Photoshop

Be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine? Sure. Cool. But I don't want to take the time to try and get famous enough to do it ... so I'm going to cheat. With a copy of Photoshop (any version from 7.0 through the current CS3 will work) or your favorite graphics editor with layer editing capabilities (like GIMP), you can cheat too.

Rolling Stone Magazine Cover: The Steps

Designing a magazine cover professionally is one thing ... what we're going to do is copy something that's already been done, though, so that we don't have to spend years learning all the concepts. If we're cheating our way onto a cover of Rolling Stone, we might as well continue the trend of taking the easy way out, right? Right. Let's get going.

1. Rolling Stone Font - First, you'll want to install a copy of the Rolling Stones font. It's free, and you can grab it here.

2. New Canvas - We're going to assume that you'd like to print your final creation. Hey, you could even frame it. Make a great gift for someone with a sense of humor, wouldn't it? So, open a new canvas (File, New) that is 8.5 x 11 inches, 300 pixels/inch resolution, in RGB mode with a white background. Yes, it's huge. But this way it will print so beautifully you'll be proud of it, and not have to explain away pixellation.

3. Place an Image - Obviously, you're going to need to start out with an extremely high-resolution photo. If you don't have one that would be just right, you can take some time to think about a theme for your cover and take a new photo that would work into that theme. You don't have to by any means - just make sure that you're not having to enlarge the photo you start out with.

In the hopes of not freaking people out with a photo of myself, I'm going to continue my lazy way through this cover and use a photo of a celebrity.

Once you have your image placed on the canvas, you'll want to consider whether or not any background should remain. Take a quick look at a few pictures of Rolling Stone covers and you'll notice that most of them don't keep a background, and those that do have a really particularly stunning one. It's all up to you. If you choose to remove the background, take your time getting the lines neat and crisp.

4. Place Title Text - Using the Rolling Stone font you installed, write the title of the magazine across the top of your canvas. You'll want to play with the color of the text, and decide whether it should be in front of or behind the photograph. It should nearly touch each side (left and right) of your canvas, and be just low enough that there's room for the "edition" text above it.

In the example, I've chosen to use the outline version of the font and then use a paintbrush to color in a layer behind the text, making it look filled and stroked. Reference Illustration 01.

5. Place Edition Text - In the top right-hand corner of every cover of Rolling Stone is a little section that repeats the magazine's name (in lower case, and outline only), and lists the issue number and publication date. You can write whatever you want here. I've simply used "Issue 1011 >> October 19, 2007". The issue number itself needs to be in a sans-serif font like Verdana or Arial. Reference Illustration 01.

6. Place Cover Text - This is the last step, but might be one of the most frustrating. Since I'm creating a cover that has Christina Aguilera on it, I've cheated (yup, again) and just copied the headlines from an actual Rolling Stone magazine cover that has .... Christina Aguilera on it. Make sure that all cover text layers go in front of your photograph, and add appropriate stroke settings to them so that they stand out. The main headline - the one with your name or the name of the person receiving the cover - is the largest one on the cover. If you decide to use dividers between headlines, keep the number down to no more than 3 or it will start making your cover look cluttered.

When using a photo of yourself or someone you're going to gift the cover to, be creative with the headlines. Try to use an existing cover as a guideline, but use your imagination and make the headlines fit their life and personality. Include a couple things that are related to our current society - politics are always a good choice - and the cover becomes much more than a gift. It's a statement and something that will actually have value to its recipient.

7. Save & Print - When you save your final cover, make sure to save it as a .psd so that you never lose any quality. Then, when you print, try printing it out on Glossy Photo paper. Make sure that your printer is set to the "Best Quality" setting, so that there is no pixellation and your colors are brilliant.

Pretty easy stuff, right? Try this same process to emulate the cover of another magazine. If you're looking for a quick gift for a baby shower, why not snap a shot of the new baby and present it in the form of a Baby magazine cover? All it takes is a few minutes of studying the layout of a magazine cover and you're well on your way.