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InDesign Creative Challenge #1: Design the next cover for a Magazine

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The November issue of FERAL goes to print soon, and it still needs a cover. The editor’s only note - it needs attitude. This month, you’re the art director.

Welcome to the InDesign Creative Challenges - a brand-new monthly series and a companion to the Illustrator challenges many of you already know. We’re starting on InDesign’s home turf - magazine cover design, where layout, type, and imagery all have to work together on a single, striking page.

THE CHALLENGE: DESIGN THE NEXT COVER FOR FERAL

The magazine FERAL is a monthly wildlife magazine with bite: bold photography, big personalities, and the stories behind nature’s best and worst behavior. Read by wildlife lovers, photographers, and design-minded readers who want their nature with a bit of attitude.

Your cover star: Any wildlife you like: a big cat, a bird, a reptile, a bug, a fish. Pick a shot with presence, ideally looking down the lens, with clear space for your masthead and cover lines.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

Masthead - set big and confident across the top (or wherever suits the design). The treatment is up to you.
Hero image - your chosen animal, filling the cover and setting the mood.
A few cover lines - written in FERAL’s voice and the Attitude Issue, with clear hierarchy: one main headline, a couple of smaller teasers.
Cohesive color palette - ideally pulled from your image, so type and photo feel like one piece. (Optional) The finishing touches - the issue date, price, a barcode, and an “exclusive” flash. Small details, big realism.

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE

YOUR INDESIGN TOOLKIT

Everything a great cover needs lives in InDesign:

Place your image - File > Place drops your hero animal (or use this Lightroom album and select the image you like) into a frame you can crop, scale, and position.
Fonts & Adobe Fonts - the masthead is your magazine’s identity; browse Adobe Fonts for a display face with real personality.
Paragraph & character styles - build your cover-line hierarchy once and keep it consistent; rescale the whole cover in seconds.
Effects: drop shadow & feather - a soft shadow or feather keeps cover lines readable wherever they cross the image.
Color Theme tool - click your photo to pull a five-color palette straight from the animal, so type and image agree.
Text wrap - optional, for flowing a cover line neatly around the animal’s silhouette.

HOW TO TAKE PART

Reply to this thread with:

Your finished cover.
A line or two on your response to the brief: which animal you chose, why, and how you built it. Honestly, this is the best part to read, so don’t skip it.
Submit your designs by October 31.

WHAT'S NEXT?

This is challenge #1 of a brand-new series, so we're building it around you. Event poster? Zine spread? Book cover? Restaurant menu? Tell us what you'd like to design next in the comments.

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