Heavily influenced by the London-based Monocle lifestyle brand, I began with a simple retail concept called LON Little Shop and soon wanted to extend our reach with a printed quarterly. We landed on Alpine Modern as the perfect name. It just so happened that Sandra Henderson, a German-native journalist living in Boulder, had started a blog on "Alpine Modern" architecture just months before. I got in touch with her and shared my plans. She was thrilled and we were both instantly aligned on the vision for what Alpine Modern could become. It was an exhilarating time to be publishing a magazine. We built up a solid subscriber base and were distributed worldwide, but from the outset we decided to keep the magazine ad-free, and after two years and six quarterly issues, we decided to shutter the operation. Perhaps if we had incorporated advertising revenue we could have kept it alive but we ran out of time and financial resources before we could tweak the model.
As a tribute to the magazine, here’s the final draft of my "Letter From the Publisher" that I wrote for Issue 01:
So, I decided to publish a magazine. In print.
Print is not dead. There has been a welcome resurgence of interest in the craft of printed media, and my devotion to print has never wavered. I read the morning newspaper. Before long plane flights, I relish the opportunity to load up with an armful of magazines. The anticipation of breaking the spine on a new book gives me chills. And yet, I have every Apple product ever made, I run my businesses in the cloud, and I can code. I am no Luddite. I spend my days hitched to digital devices; so my idea of relaxed reading is not staring at another rectangular display. Give me print.
Alpine Modern is, quite simply, the magazine I have always wanted to read but could never find. A magazine with rich, global lifestyle editorial about modern living in mountain regions, with layout and typography inspired by mid-century Swiss design – and a magazine that limits its advertisements and partnerships with only brands that share these philosophies. I believe brand marketing should provide inspiration and discovery, not noise. Issue 01 is our first take on this ideal. Grab your coffee, throw another log on the fire, and settle into the first issue of Alpine Modern. Thanks for reading.
— Lon
