Building an Empire: Creating the GOAT Business Journal Cover

For Adobe’s Cross-Product Creative Challenge, I created a high-end magazine cover featuring Billy Gates—a determined goat entrepreneur who beat the odds and built one of the country’s top field-clearing franchises.

The goal was to create something that looked like a real business magazine while adding some humor through goat-inspired headlines and supporting stories.

Creating the Images

I was out of Adobe Firefly credits, so I used ChatGPT to generate the main goat character and field background as separate images. Creating the elements individually gave me more control when assembling the final cover.

I brought the images into Photoshop, removed the backgrounds, cleaned up the edges, corrected the suit, and touched up several details. I also added a soft drop shadow beneath the main character to help him feel grounded in the scene.

Small “BG” logos were added to the other goats’ suits to connect them to Billy Gates’ field-clearing company.

Designing the Cover

I completed the magazine layout and typography in Photoshop. The oversized GOAT masthead establishes the publication immediately, while the main headline introduces Billy Gates and his story.

I used strong contrast, clear type hierarchy, and balanced spacing to make the cover easy to scan and read. The supporting stories were positioned around the main character so the layout feels full and authentic without covering the most important parts of the image.

The result combines AI-generated imagery with traditional Photoshop compositing, retouching, typography, and layout design to create a polished—and intentionally playful—business magazine cover.