London, February 2007.

Monocle is a London magazine about global affairs, business, culture and design, started by the Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé, who had earlier founded Wallpaper*. Dezeen reported on 15 February 2007 that the new magazine was on newsstands around the world that day, and it quoted at length from the launch announcement.

According to that announcement, Monocle was conceived from the outset as “a global media brand that combines print, web and broadcast components”. At its core was a monthly magazine, published 10 times a year, with a web-based broadcast arm alongside it delivering bulletins, short documentaries and talk formats. The magazine was to be published from a London hub, with editorial bureaux in New York, Zürich and Tokyo from launch, and an editorial team of 22 drawn from the Independent, the BBC, The New York Times and other news organisations. It was printed in the UK.

The launch announcement also set out the corporate structure. Monocle was described as a completely separate entity from Brûlé’s creative agency, Winkreative. It was financed by an international group of private investors and published from London by Winkontent, which the release called the editorial and broadcast arm of Winkorp AG.

Dezeen listed a cover story about the Japanese navy, a report from the Mexican city of Ensenada, and a regular slot called “Style Leaders”, which in that issue looked at the clothes of Iran’s president. Ten years later, Press Gazette recalled the same opening story, describing an 18-page report on the Japanese navy that led a magazine of about 250 pages.

The announcement described the intended reader in a sentence that Eye also quoted that summer: Monocle was meant as much for “the Spanish banker living in London” as for “the Finnish architect in Zürich, the Canadian lawyer in Hong Kong, or the Brazilian gallerist in Tokyo”. It promised a magazine free of PR-driven content and celebrities, with original coverage of places less often covered and business pages interested in the small and crafted as well as the large.

A website, a station and a set of offices.

The website was part of the launch rather than an afterthought. Eye, the graphic design quarterly, reviewed it in its Summer 2007 issue and said the site launched at the same time as the new monthly, in March 2007 by its account. Eye credited Dan Hill as web and broadcast director and Richard Spencer Powell as creative director. One of its reviewers, John O’Reilly, picked out the site’s white type on a black background and its filmed interviews, among them one with Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. Other reviewers in the same feature, including Erik Spiekermann and Anne Burdick, discussed how closely the site followed the print design.

Audio became the brand’s main broadcast form. The Drum reported on 18 October 2011 that Brûlé was launching a 24-hour internet radio station that week. It would carry live shows, music, weather and foreign news supplied by Sky and ABC Australia. Monocle’s own writers would host the programmes, and former BBC World Service presenters would read the news. The Drum quoted Brûlé, speaking to the Telegraph, as saying the team chose 24-hour radio over an internet television channel because audio was an intimate format that suited the print magazine. Rolex and J Crew were named as sponsors, and an app was due from 1 November.

By the magazine’s tenth year the station was a fixed part of the brand. Press Gazette, in an interview with Brûlé published on 3 March 2017, said Monocle had added a 24-hour online radio station to its website and was focusing on expanding its book publishing division. Monocle was still based in London and had editorial offices around the world. Brûlé said he planned more print specials on business and travel, and more books built around travel guides, essays and reportage.

The same interview recorded a small piece of typographic house style. Press Gazette noted that Monocle flags paid-for editorial with an “X” between two names, giving “Lisbon Tourism X Monocle” at the top of a travel feature on Portugal as an example. Brûlé told the paper that readers still wanted something tactile, comparing a well-made magazine to a good linen napkin or a well-upholstered sofa.

Print, radio and retail under one name.

A design publication is read as much as it is looked at, and its identity has to work across every surface it touches. The masthead is the anchor: a wordmark that sits at the top of a cover, a website header and a social avatar, and has to stay legible at the width of a phone screen as well as on a newsstand. Around it, covers and grids carry the voice from issue to issue. A cover system might fix the masthead position and leave the image to change, or treat each cover as a commission and let only the type stay constant. Inside, the grid, the body face and the caption style set the pace of reading.

Online, the same identity is stretched across websites and newsletters, where it has to survive templates, thumbnails and inbox previews. Many titles also run events, talks and annuals, and each of these becomes a brand surface in its own right, with its own posters, stage graphics and printed books. Read together, these pieces show how a publication keeps one recognisable voice while its formats keep changing.

Shareholders and a newsstand.

Monocle has taken outside shareholders while its founder’s company kept control. FIPP, the international media association, reported on 15 September 2014, citing Folio, that the Tokyo-based publisher Nikkei had acquired a minority stake in Monocle. Brûlé’s holding company, Winkontent, remained the majority owner. Under the deal Monocle would have access to Nikkei’s editorial operation, Nikkei could use Monocle’s distribution for its English-language weekly, the Nikkei Asian Review, and Nikkei’s magazine group would help market Monocle in Japan. FIPP quoted Nikkei’s president, Tsuneo Kita, on the value of global reach, and Brûlé on working with Nikkei correspondents to strengthen coverage in various regions.

A second minority investor followed. Press Gazette reported on 8 November 2017 that the Thai property developer Sansiri had taken a stake in Monocle, which it described as a monthly international lifestyle magazine with an online radio station, book publishing and a retail division. Brûlé said the investment would support plans to expand in Asia. Before the Sansiri deal, Press Gazette said, Brûlé’s holding company owned the majority of Monocle, and the paper’s March 2017 interview had described the same arrangement.

Retail turned the brand into physical places. On 6 October 2015 the London restaurant site Hot Dinners reported that Kioskafé, a newsstand and coffee bar from the team behind Monocle, had opened the previous week in Paddington. It described a small space modelled on the street kiosks of European cities, selling magazines, newspapers and travel essentials, with coffee and food, including muesli from The Monocle Café.

Taken together, the dated record shows a brand that grew outward from a magazine without leaving it. The 2007 launch release already promised print, web and broadcast; the radio station arrived in 2011; book publishing and retail were in place by 2017; and in each case the name Monocle carried across the format.

For a design guide, Monocle shows how one masthead can stretch across print, a website, a radio station and a newsstand while keeping a steady, restrained visual voice. Compare Wallpaper*, the earlier magazine Brûlé founded in London, and Kinfolk, another independent lifestyle title in this collection. For this guide we use night black, navy, brass and newsprint with a Franklin-style sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Monocle’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.