How to Design a Healthy Magazine Cover Mockup in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will be designing a healthy magazine cover mockup for Delicious Foods magazine in Photoshop. To do this we will be using some of the amazing and realistic items from The Mammoth Mockup Template Toolkit with a few fantastic freebies courtesy of Aleksey Belorukov and Zippy Pixels. The freebies we will be working with in this tutorial are just a small sample of the incredible mockup templates and items you will find in the complete bundle that will truly make your work stand out from the competition. In addition to these elements, we will also be using a free typeface for the magazine cover. If you’re all ready to get started, then fire up Photoshop and let’s begin!

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Here’s a look at what we’ll be creating:

Step 1: Delicious Foods Magazine

To begin, create a new document and give the file a name – here I will be using ‘delicious-foods-magazine-cover-design’. After that, change the size to an ‘8’ inch square with a ‘Resolution’ of ‘300’ and leave the ‘Color Mode’ set to ‘RGB’. From here, click on the ‘Create’ button in the lower right to create your document.

Now that you have your new document, go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the freebies folder for the tutorial. Inside here you will find the ‘Aleksey Belorukov’ subfolder and then choose the ‘Background.psd’ file and open it.

Let’s position this file next to our empty document and then select the top ‘effects’ folder, hold the Shift key and select the ‘background’ folder below it and drag them both over into your document while holding the Shift key. Once you have done that you can close the ‘Background.psd’ file.

Step 2: Background Resizing

Now that we have the main background and the effects in our document we will need to tweak and adjust a few things. To start, turn off the visibility of the ‘effects’ folder and then expand the contents of the ‘background’ folder to reveal the layers inside. Once you are inside of the ‘background’ folder, scroll down to ‘Layer 28’ and you will notice that a small lock icon appears next to the layer. This is a setting called ‘lock transparency’ that prevents us from transforming or modifying the layer, so to disable this we will need to select the small square checkered icon just under the Blending Modes in the Layers Palette next to the word ‘Lock’ as shown below:

After unlocking the layer, press Command/Ctrl+T to do a Free Transform and click and drag outwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box while holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys to scale it up proportionally from the center until it covers the entire canvas.

Next, select both the ‘noise’ layer as well as the ‘Layer 29’ layer and use the Free Transform to once again scale both of these layers up together while holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys until they fill the whole canvas.

Step 3: Adjusting Effects

Now let’s turn our attention to the ‘effects’ folder so we’ll now turn the visibility of this folder back on. The first folder you will see once expanding the main ‘effects’ folder is the ‘light’ folder. Select the mask icon as indicated by the green highlight box below:

Press Command/Ctrl+T to do a Free Transform and click and drag outwards from any of the corners of the bounding box while once again holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys to scale the gradient up until it fills the canvas and then press ‘Return’ on the keyboard to apply the changes.

Now let’s scale up the ‘noise’ layer just inside of the ‘light’ subfolder the same way we did before so that it fills the entire canvas.

Step 4: Resizing Masks

Now select the ‘effects copy’ folder inside of the main ‘effects’ folder and click on the small link icon between the folder and the mask to unlink them.

Once you have unlinked the folder from the mask we can select the mask independently and scale it up using the Free Transform (Command/Ctrl+T) as we did earlier in order to size this up so that it fills the whole canvas.

Step 5: Shadow Sizes

Next, select the ‘window light copy’ folder and drop the ‘Opacity’ down until it’s set to ‘10%’ as shown here:

Select the ‘shadow’ folder, hold the Shift key, and then select the ‘window light copy’ folder below, and scale them both up proportionally from the center by first pressing Command/Ctrl+T to do a Free Transform and then once again dragging outwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box while holding the Alt/Option+Shift keys. Once you have done that, press ‘Return’ to apply the transformation.

Step 6: Green Paint

At this point let’s go ahead and drag the ‘Background’ layer to the trash bin since we no longer need it. You should now just have the ‘effects’ and ‘background’ folders as shown below:

Click on the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and then choose ‘Solid Color…’ from the dropdown menu.

For the fill color, enter the hex value ‘#44503E’ and then press ‘Return’ on the keyboard or click ‘OK’ to continue.

Next, change the Blend Mode of the Solid Color Adjustment Layer from ‘Normal’ to ‘Multiply’ as shown in the image below:

Step 7: Corner Light

Select the two ‘effect copy’ Curves Adjustments and scale them up by once again using the Free Transform option (Command/Ctrl+T). Move them up and to the left more so the light is more subtle over the canvas as shown here:

Step 8: Removing Color Labels

Next, hold the Control key and click on the eyeball next to the ‘effects’ folder and then choose the ‘No Color’ option to remove the yellow highlight. Sometimes these labels can be useful, but for now we are just going to turn them off.

Step 9: Tidying Up

Next, expand the contents of the ‘background’ folder. Then, click and drag the green ‘Multiply’ layer into that folder and place it at the top as shown here:

At this point you should just have the two main folders for the ‘effects’ and for the ‘background’.

Step 10: Magazine Mockup

Next, go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and then navigate to the ‘Zippy Pixels’ subfolder inside of the freebies folder for this tutorial. Inside of this subfolder we will then select the ’01.psd’ file and choose ‘Open’ from the lower right corner.

Once you have opened the file, click and drag the ‘A4 Book’ folder over into your document. After that you can close the ’01.psd’ file as we no longer need it and don’t want to save over it.

After you’ve brought the mockup into your document, place it below the ‘effects’ folder and then scale it down a bit and rotate it counter clockwise using the Free Transform option (Command/Ctrl+T) so that your magazine mockup looks like this:

Step 11: Cover Art

Click on the small arrow next to the ‘A4 Book’ folder name to expand the contents of the folder and then double click on the ‘Front Cover…’ Smart Object highlighted in red to go inside.

You will now be inside of the main file where we can put together our magazine cover design. To get started, click on the Adjustment Layer icon and select the ‘Solid Color…’ option shown here:

For the fill color, enter the hex value ‘#93836F’ and then click ‘OK’ to proceed.

You should now have this:

Step 12: Soup’s On!

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ from the dropdown and then navigate to the ‘Soup.psd’ file in the freebies folder and choose ‘Open’.

Click and drag the main ‘soup’ folder into your document and then scale it up so that it’s nice and large and a bit higher than the center of the image as shown here:

Step 13: Garlic Cloves

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ from the dropdown and this time select the ‘Garlic.psd’ file in the freebies folder and choose ‘Open’.

Drag the ‘garlic’ folder into the document and position it above and to the right of the soup as shown below:

Step 14: Crumbs

Next, return to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and navigate to the ‘Crumbs.psd’ file to open it.

Drag the ‘crumbs’ folder into your document and place it beneath the ‘soup’ folder. We will also need to use the Free Transform once again to scale the crumbs up and rotate them a bit so you end up with something like the image shown here:

Step 15: Spicy Spoon

Next, return to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and navigate to the ‘Spoon.psd’ file and choose ‘Open’ from the lower right corner to open it.

Click and drag the ‘spoon’ folder into your document and position and scale it like this:

Step 16: Food Type

Create a new layer and switch over to the Type Tool (T) and then type out the word ‘FOODS’ in all uppercase. If you don’t have it already, open the Character panel (found under the Window menu) and change your typeface to a bold, condensed, sans serif typeface.

In this case, I will be using a typeface called ‘Acumin Variable Concept’ in the ‘Condensed Bold’ style, but you can use any number of free condensed typefaces such as Helvetica or Futura instead. Let’s also make the size of the text about ‘222 pt’ with a solid white fill color, and then place it over the bowl of soup as shown here:

Next, turn the visibility of the ‘FOODS’ text off for a moment. Add a new layer and this time type out the word ‘delicious’ in all lowercase letters. For this we will be using a free typeface called ‘Hensa’ from Graphic Burger. Once you have downloaded and installed the font go ahead and use this for the text. Reduce the size to about ‘150 pt’ and then click on the ‘Color’ box to change the fill.

For our new fill color let’s use a nice orange-yellow color such as ‘#FFC600’ and then press ‘OK’ to continue.

Step 17: Skewers

Turn the visibility of the ‘FOODS’ layer back on and make sure that it is below the ‘delicious’ script text. After that, select the orange script layer and press Command/Ctrl+T to do a Free Transform. Hold the Control key and click on the bounding box to reveal a dropdown menu where we want to choose ‘Skew’ from the menu.

After choosing ‘Skew’ from the menu, move your cursor over the right side of the bounding box and click and drag upwards to skew the type like this:

Step 18: Type Mask

Next, select the ‘delicious’ text layer and add a Layer Mask by clicking the icon found at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Once you have added the mask, keep the layer selected and then hold the Command/Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the ‘FOODS’ text layer below. Doing this should activate a selection around the white letters while you still have your orange script layer selected.

Grab the Brush Tool (B) and make sure you have a solid black foreground color selected. From here, use a hard round brush and go over the parts of the letters highlighted below to hide the script text, making it look like it is actually going behind the letters in some spots like this:

Step 19: Title Group

Once you are happy with the appearance of your text you can simply deselect it all by pressing Command/Ctrl+D on the keyboard. After that, select the top text layer, hold the Shift key, and then select the ‘FOODS’ text layer below so you have both of the layers selected simultaneously.

With both of the layers still selected, press Command/Ctrl+G to put them into a new folder and then double click the ‘Group 1’ text and rename this folder ‘TT’ for ‘Title Treatment’ as shown below:

With the ‘TT’ folder selected, press Command/Ctrl+J to duplicate it and then Command/Ctrl and the left bracket on the keyboard to move it down one position in the Layers Palette. After that, double click on the ‘TT copy’ folder to open the Layer Style panel.

Let’s apply a Drop Shadow with the Blend Mode set to ‘Multiply’ and a solid black fill. Reduce the ‘Opacity’ to ‘38%’ and then leave the ‘Use Global Light’ box checked off. For the ‘Distance’ we will input a value of ’41’, for the ‘Spread’ we will use ‘5’ and for the ‘Size’ we will go with ’68’ and then click ‘OK’ to apply the effect.

Step 20: Text Shadows

Now that we’ve applied a drop shadow to the copy of the title text below the original text, we want to mask it so that it only appears over the bowl of soup. To do this, select the ‘TT copy’ folder and then hold the Command/Ctrl key and click on the layer thumbnail icon of the ‘saucer copy’ layer inside of the ‘soup’ folder.

With the ‘TT copy’ folder still selected, you should now have an active selection around the soup bowl. From here, simply add a Layer Mask and you should now only see the shadow effect that we applied inside the boundaries of the shape of the bowl. Doing this will help the legibility of the white and orange-yellow text over the soup while also adding a bit of depth.

Step 21: Supporting Text

Add another new layer and this time we want to type out the wording: “Vegetarian cooking has never been easier! This all new edition features over 50 meals you can make in 30 minutes or less!”

For this we will use a serif typeface such as ‘Baskerville’ set to about ‘17.37 pt’ with a tracking setting of ’40’ and a solid white fill. You can use another serif typeface for this instead if you prefer, but we just want to make sure that we select a font that has at least a ‘Regular’ and a ‘Bold’ style so that we can emphasize some of the words. Here I have bolded the first sentence as well as the ‘over 50 meals’ and ’30 minutes or less!’ to draw a bit more attention to those parts. Once you have done that, let’s make sure to place this layer below the ‘soup’ folder so that the shadow from the bowl of soup is on top of this text layer to create a nice looking effect.

Create another new layer and this time we will type out the words ‘healthy and easy’ using the same serif typeface, only this time we will set the size to about ’14 pt’ and use a ‘Bold Oblique’ style with a solid white fill instead.

Add another text layer and type out the number ’30’ using the ‘Regular’ or ‘Bold’ style set to about ’32 pt’ size and a tracking of about ‘-5’ with a solid white fill. What we want to do is place this number just to the right of the ‘healthy and easy’ text as shown here:

Duplicate the ‘healthy and easy’ text layer and move it over to the right side of the number ’30’ and then click inside with the Type Tool and change the text to read ‘minute meals’ to complete the phrase.

Step 22: Copy Folder

Select the ‘Vegetarian cooking…’ text layer, hold the Shift key, and then select the bottom ‘minute meals’ text so that all of our supporting text is selected together.

With these text layers selected, press Command/Ctrl+G to place them into a new folder and double click the ‘Group 1’ text to rename the folder ‘copy’ as shown here:

At this stage we have set up our magazine cover so let’s go ahead and save this file by pressing Command/Ctrl+S and then once it has finished press Command/Ctrl+W to close the window and return to our main document.

Step 23: Artichokes

Next, go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the ‘Artichokes.psd’ file in the freebies folder and then choose ‘Open’.

Drag and drop the ‘artichokes’ folder into your main document and position them in the upper left corner as shown here:

Step 24: Berries

Next, go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the ‘Berries.psd’ file in the freebies folder and then choose ‘Open’.

Drag and drop the ‘berries’ folder into your document and position them in the upper left just beneath the artichokes.

Step 25: Asparagus

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the ‘Asparagus.psd’ file in the freebies folder and then choose ‘Open’.

Drag the ‘asparagus’ folder into the document and position them to the right of the magazine cover. From here, press Command/Ctrl+T to do a Free Transform and then hold the Control key and click on the bounding box before choosing ‘Flip Vertical’.

Position the asparagus so that it is slightly cropped off of the right side of the image as shown below:

Step 26: Cutting Board

Return to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the ‘Board.psd’ file and choosing ‘Open’ from the bottom right corner of the panel.

Scale the board up accordingly and position it in the lower right corner so that only the top left portion of the board is visible as shown here:

Step 27: Breadcrumbs

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and select the ‘Bread.psd’ file and choose ‘Open’ from the bottom right.

Select all three of the folders inside of the ‘bread.psd’ and click and drag them over into your main document.

Position the ‘bread’ and both of the ‘crumbs’ folders in the upper right portion of the canvas so that the top slice of bread is slightly cropped.

Step 28: Tablecloth

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and select the ‘Cloth.psd’ to bring it into your document.

Move the ‘cloth’ folder below the ‘A4 Book’ and rotate it slightly to create some overlap and depth.

Step 29: Crumbs

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and then choose the ‘Crumbs.psd’ and click ‘Open’ to open the file.

Drag the ‘crumbs’ folder into the main document and position it below the ‘A4 Book’ folder as shown here:

Step 30: Eggsellent

Return to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ before navigating to the ‘Eggs.psd’ file and choosing ‘Open’ from the lower right.

Drag the ‘eggs’ folder into the document and place it to the left of the magazine cover with about half of the bowl cropped out like this:

Step 31: Mushrooms

Go to the File menu and choose ‘Open…’ and then go to the ‘Mushroom.psd’ file and choose ‘Open’ from the lower right.

Drag the folder into your document and position the mushroom beneath the bowl of eggs as shown in the image below:

Step 32: Yellow Pepper

Head back up to the File menu and then open the ‘Pepper.psd’ file from the freebies folder.

Click and drag the ‘pepper’ folder into your main document and then place it in the lower left corner next to the magazine to fill out the table and complete the scene.

We have now completed our Delicious Foods healthy magazine cover mockup! To create our magazine cover we’ve used a beautiful mockup template from Zippy Pixels that we’ve combined with various food items and a background from Aleksey Belorukov, along with a free typeface from Graphic Burger. Remember that the resources we have used for the tutorial are just a small portion of the insanely massive and versatile collection of mockups you will find in this all new design bundle! There is truly no better way to showcase your design work for potential clients.

Remember that whether it’s your outcome for this tutorial or something new you’ve made, we’d love to see your designs on our Facebook page.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. We always look forward to hearing from you!

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