BoF Recommends: Monocle, a magazine for the 21st century

Earlier this year, Tyler Brûlé, famous for launching Wallpaper* magazine and for his now defunct Fast Lane column in the weekend Financial Times, launched Monocle magazine, a self-described briefing on global affairs, business, culture and design.

In the Brûlé days, Wallpaper* was a large format glossy magazine with a black logo printed on a white cover, with plenty of photos and little text. While it was pretty to look at, you could get through the magazine in less than 20 minutes of page-turning, and the website offered nothing extra -- in fact, it was pretty much an empty shell.

Monocle couldn't be more different. It is a smaller format magazine with a white logo printed on a black cover and plenty of text printed on matte (almost dull) paper. The focus is on the written content, which is rich, varied and quirky. The magazine did get off to a slightly slow start, but it has picked up steam over the past few issues and is beginning to find its voice. The business content is a bit random (an interview in Issue 01 with the CEO of Lego left me underwhelmed, for example) but the fashion content while light, is spot on.