ONE EYE ON THE WORLD
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Monocle, the brainchild of the expat Canadian magazine maker, Tyler BrĂ»lĂ©, was born in early 2007, a relatively awful year for the magazine business, not to mention the entire world. In that year alone, more than 100 print magazines foldedâor, as Wikipedia terms it, were âdis-establishedââamong them: Life (yet again), Premiere, Red Herring, House & Garden, Jane, Child, and Business 2.0. Months later, the global economy was hit by the Great Recession.
But Brûlé was coming out from under a rather lengthy non-compete agreement with Time Inc., after selling his previous startup, Wallpaper*, to the American media giant, and he was desperate to get back to the newsroom.
Given the times, and the stream of fading print publications, one could judge BrĂ»lĂ©âs resolve as âmadness,â as Don Quixote cried in the opening clip. Digital was all the rage, the iPad was knocking on the door, and the radiation of the frenzied dotcom meltdown was still slowly killing legacy media.
âMadnessâ? Not if you know Tyler BrĂ»lĂ©.Â
In his world, âlife as it should beâ is richâa morning espresso in a bustling cafe with a crisp newspaper written and edited in the romance language of your choice, sorting out weekends skiing the Alps or lounging on the Med while riding the night train to Vienna.
And then thereâs the printânot only the magazine itself, printed on âupwards of nine different paper stocks, crammed with extremely niche articles about carbon-neutral airlines in Costa Rica and sleek Afghan restaurants in Dubai,â but also special edition newspapers, coffee table books, and Monocle-approved travel guides.Â
(Someone forgot to tell Brûlé and his brilliant team of collaborators that print is dead).
In a media culture traditionally obsessed with scale at any cost, Monocleâs modest 100,000 circulation belies a thriving multi-media juggernaut that confidently ignores the lure of social media. âWeâre in a very fortunate position that weâre an independent publisher,â says BrĂ»lĂ©, âand we donât have the commercial pressures of a big parent. And those commercial pressures can be two-fold: One is cost savings, but the other pressures are to go and chase after every new trend.â
In fact, Brûlé thinks of Monocle as a family business.
âWe donât set out to be pioneers, but also weâre a family company, and we can choose to do things quickly if we want to.â
That same culture has manufactured the pressure to establish oneâs entrepreneurial cred. Youâre not the editor, youâre the founding editor, the founding creative director, the founding director. But when asked about how he thinks of and refers to himself, BrĂ»lĂ© answers simply:
âIf I think about âWhat do I do?â Iâm a journalist. Iâm out to be a witness. Iâm out to absorb, Iâm out to interpret, and Iâm out to communicate.Â
A print-centric media phenomenon, created as a family business, led by a journalist. Surprising? Not for someone whoâs been building a lifeâas it should be.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.
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