Former trade-press staff, a new company and a monthly for architects.

Icon began as the opening title of a publishing company that did not exist a year earlier. Press Gazette reported on 3 April 2003 that Icon, a monthly magazine for architects and designers, was the debut launch of Media10, a new publisher set up by former staff of ETP, a subsidiary of the business publisher Wilmington. English Wikipedia says Media 10 Ltd still owns the title.

The launch team came from the trade press. The same Press Gazette report named Marcus Fairs, previously deputy editor of the weekly Building Design, as editor, Kieron Long, formerly of the Builder group, as deputy editor, and Aiden Walker, a former editor-in-chief at ETP, as executive editor. The publisher was Daren Newton, who had been business development editor at ETP, where, the report said, he oversaw titles including Blueprint and FX. English Wikipedia names Newton and Fairs as the founders and credits the art direction to Violetta Boxhill.

The magazine was planned to reach two audiences at once. Press Gazette wrote that Icon aimed at professional architects and designers and also at the growing number of young professionals who had taken an interest in design through television programmes such as Dream Spaces and Grand Designs. To reach both, the title was to be sold on news-stands as well as distributed directly to professionals in the trade. Newton told the paper that young readers wanted to go where the professionals go for products and services. Fairs said he wanted to bring some humour into a subject that he felt was usually written about too earnestly.

The paper’s launch listings, published on 10 April 2003, filed Icon under the architecture sector, with Media 10 as publisher, Fairs as editor and a monthly frequency. The same listing said the magazine was aimed at the professional architecture and design market and at the general reader. Media 10 itself, in a 2016 company announcement, described Icon as the opening title in its portfolio and gave 2003 as its launch year.

The founding editor later started a design publication of his own. English Wikipedia says Fairs went on to found the online magazine Dezeen in 2006, a London design website that publishes daily rather than monthly.

A 150th issue, a new logo and a run of editors.

A visible change came with issue 150. InPublishing reported on 5 November 2015 that the new Icon was going on sale that week under the editorial direction of David Michon, formerly managing editor of Monocle. The relaunch, the report said, brought a new logo, a faster-paced design with new typefaces and a more accessible voice. The content was reorganised into three sections, Lifestyle, Architecture and Objects, and the magazine took a new strapline, “Design worth knowing”.

Media 10 described the idea behind the change in the same report. The publisher said the new Icon covered design in everyday life, from personal kit and restaurants to hotels, neighbourhoods and cities, and was meant to be read at the weekend rather than only at the office. Michon, quoted by InPublishing, said the magazine was now one to pick up at the weekend, not just to have delivered to an office. The 150th issue looked at new design from Slovenia and Bosnia, two new hotels in upstate New York and architecture in Albania.

Media 10’s own announcement of Michon’s appointment, captured by the Wayback Machine in October 2016, said he had joined Monocle in 2009, had managed the launch of its digital radio station M24 in 2011, and from 2014 had worked with its sister agency Winkreative on editorial strategy. In the same notice Michon said he wanted to make Icon a more international place for opinion, reportage, review and ideas about architecture and design.

The next editor arrived in 2018. InPublishing reported on 11 July 2018 that Media 10 had appointed Priya Khanchandani as editor of Icon, with immediate effect, to lead the title across print, web, social media and live events. Media 10’s editor-in-chief, Lisa Allen, said in the announcement that Khanchandani had written for titles including Frieze, Disegno and The White Review, had worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Council, and had trained in design history at the Royal College of Art.

The format then slowed down. English Wikipedia says Icon changed from a monthly to a quarterly publication in 2020, and names Jessica-Christin Hametner as the current editor. The magazine’s website, iconeye.com, was online in October 2026 with sections for architecture, design and opinion.

An architecture monthly, a 2015 relaunch and a quarterly.

A magazine can keep its name for decades and still change the way that name is set. InPublishing reported on 5 November 2015 that the London design magazine Icon, launched in 2003, marked its 150th issue with a new logo, new typefaces and a faster-paced layout, together with three new sections and a new strapline, “Design worth knowing”. English Wikipedia says the same title moved from monthly to quarterly publication in 2020, so the masthead now appears four times a year.

A name can also travel between titles. English Wikipedia says the Paris weekly Elle was founded in 1945 and that its publisher launched Elle Decoration in France in 1987; Business of Home reported that the American Elle Decor marked its 35th anniversary in 2024. Covers carry the other half of the change. Business of Home wrote on 11 September 2024 that the first Elle Decor issue under a new editor in 2020 used an illustration by Rachelle Baker that reimagined Nancy Lancaster’s Yellow Room. When reading a magazine’s identity, look at when the logo and typefaces were last redrawn, how often the issues appear, which parent title lends the name, and whether the cover shows a room, a photograph or an argument.

One short word for a magazine, from launch to quarterly.

The name has stayed the same since 2003. Icon launched under one short English word and has kept it through a change of editors, a relaunch with a new logo in 2015 and a move to quarterly publication in 2020. English Wikipedia gives the title in capitals, as ICON, and Media 10 used the capitalised form in its 2018 announcement of a new editor; Press Gazette printed it the same way in its 2003 launch listing.

The publisher has stayed the same as well. English Wikipedia says the title is owned by Media 10 Ltd and sits in a portfolio that also includes the workplace design magazine OnOffice and the events Clerkenwell Design Week and Design London. Media 10 has owned Icon since its launch in 2003.

The relaunch of November 2015 is the one point in the record where the look of the magazine was described in detail. InPublishing listed a new logo, new typefaces, a pacier design and three named sections, and gave the strapline “Design worth knowing”. Media 10 presented the new look as a magazine for weekend reading as well as for the design office, which follows the two-audience plan described by Press Gazette in 2003: a trade title that could also sit on the news-stand.

Its editors have come from different parts of the design press. The founding editor came from the weekly Building Design, the 2015 editor from Monocle, and the 2018 editor from art and design writing and museum work, according to the reports in Press Gazette and InPublishing. Each change of editor, in this record, came with a public statement of what the magazine should cover, from humour in architecture writing in 2003 to design in everyday life in 2015 and commentary across print, web and events in 2018.

For a design guide, Icon shows how a short, capitalised one-word title can carry a magazine through a relaunch, a new logo and a change from monthly to quarterly, while the publisher and the name stay fixed. Compare Dezeen, the London design website English Wikipedia says Icon’s founding editor started in 2006, or Wallpaper*, a London design monthly. For this guide we use grey, red and black with a bold grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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