Get a magazine cover design you’ll love

Everything you need to move to production. Your cover design will be uploaded in the correct formats to send to a printer or be submitted to an online publishing platform (or both). 

Specifically, your winning designer will deliver a production-ready Adobe Illustrator file, Adobe Photoshop file, PDF file or EPS file. 

Plus, you’ll get the full legal copyright, so the design will be all yours.

On 99designs, designers agree to upload only original artwork, so each designer owns the rights to their design submissions until you choose your contest’s winner. During the cover design handover stage, the designer agrees to transfer the rights, and you become the owner of the copyright of your winning magazine cover design.

Yes! We have designers who are professionally skilled in typesetting and magazine interiors. We recommend that you run a design contest to get your magazine cover designed first. Then, choose a skilled designer from our typesetting design list and request for them to work on your project.

Yes. We offer a 100% money-back guarantee within 60 days of payment on all Design Contests, except those with a guaranteed designer prize and those that have entered the Final Round. You can also call us anytime to help you rewrite your brief, reopen your project to ensure you get a good result and help you pick a winning design. Remember, if we refund your contest, you aren’t legally entitled to use any of the designs submitted to your contest.

At 99designs, we’re dedicated to building the world’s largest community of talented, professional designers. Every designer must apply and be accepted to work on our platform. Designer applications are reviewed by human design experts, and accepted designers are classified as either Top, Mid or Entry-Level. At 99designs you can feel assured you’re working with an expert.

Lots of ideas! If you’re looking for inspiration, explore 99designs for fantastic examples of product labels created by our design community.

Bring as many specifics as you can, too, like magazine cover dimensions, printing requirements and the information that needs to go on the front and back covers of your magazine.

The more you give the designers, the better they can design for you!

Yes. If you have any specific photography or images that need to be included on your magazine cover design, please submit them to designers with your brief.

Unless you request otherwise, your designer may also use stock images (purchased from a third party) in your design. If a designer uses stock art in a design, they’ll tell you which images they are and use watermarked versions of them in their entries. Once you choose the winning design, you’ll need to purchase the stock art and provide it to the winning designer so they can complete the design.

We guarantee that you’ll get a great magazine cover design at any pricing level, but our higher-priced packages give you more design options and better support.

Here’s how it works: When you pay more, the prize for the winning designer is bigger, too. More experienced designers participate in your contest, so you get more high-quality designs to choose from. More options means additional time that's needed to review your designs. That’s why our Gold and Platinum packages offer dedicated managers to help streamline that process by writing creative briefs and giving your designers feedback.

When selecting your magazine cover contest package, think about how much time you’ll have and what experience you have writing briefs and working with designers. If you're still unsure, contact us for a design consultation.

Choose “Make your contest private” from the Contest options section before you launch your magazine cover design contest. This will prohibit designers from using their designs elsewhere, and your contest will be un-searchable on the web.

This will automatically attach a standard NDA template to your contest. If you prefer, you can also upload your own NDA.