Podcast Cover Art Template for Interview Series (WSJ-Style, Repeatable Across Episodes)

READ THIS BEFORE YOU APPLY. Small, well-defined job with ongoing repeat work. I need one clean, editorial-style podcast cover template that I can reuse every episode by swapping the guest photo and title. Think Wall Street Journal / The Economist — restrained and credible, not flashy. Budget is $150 for the master template plus the first episode cover. After that, each new episode cover is a quick swap at a per-cover rate, and we publish regularly, so this is steady recurring work for the right person. No heavy photo retouching required. Please don't apply unless both are true: 1. You've done editorial or publication-style design — magazine, newspaper, or series covers. Include 2–3 portfolio links to that kind of work. Generic logo/flyer/social-post portfolios will be passed over. 2. You read this. Start your proposal with the word PLUM. Canned proposals go to the trash. We give clear, specific direction up front and expect the style locked in one or two rounds, not ten. We're looking for a designer to create the cover art template for my podcast, The Income Protection Journal. Google it and check it out. Every episode features a different guest, so each cover swaps in a new guest photo, but they all need to share one consistent template so the series reads as a clean set in the podcast feed. The host stays constant; the guest changes each time. The aesthetic I'm after is a Wall Street Journal feel: editorial, restrained, credible, not flashy. The first episode is titled "Claims Attorney on Buying Disability Insurance That Pays," and I'd like the first mockup built around one of the two guest photos I provide. What I'll give you to start: 1. A batch of design mockups as a reference pool. None is the final answer. Use them as a set of directions to pull from and blend into something that fits the WSJ feel. 2. Photos of the first two guests, so you can see the real source images you'll work with. They won't all be studio-perfect. Part of the job is making any a low res screenshot look good in the treatment. 3. The show has a logo already. First milestone: One polished template mockup built around one of the two guests, so we can lock the style before rolling it out across episodes. Once approved, this becomes the master template for the ongoing series. Deliverables: 1. A layered, editable master template (Photoshop, Figma, or similar) with the guest photo and episode title as easily swappable elements 2. Cover sized to podcast at 3:2 aspect ratio 3. Design so a square crop is safe too 4. One finished episode cover using the first guest This would be on going. We'd pay $150 for each new episode image. Ideal freelancer: 1. Strong editorial or publication design sensibility. We are not looking for an advertising oriented designer. We want this to look like news media. Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, or The Economist design style. 2. Experience with podcast or series cover art 3. Comfortable retouching and normalizing low-res screenshots from MP4s of varying quality so they sit consistently in a template This is the start of an ongoing relationship. We release new episodes regularly and will need covers produced from the locked template each time, so I'm looking for someone I can keep working with. I also have other clients with varying design needs and am looking to build relationships with qualified designers.