We believe it's time for a new, global, European based media brand. With a keen focus, strong reporting, sharp wit and more classic approach to design, we've dubbed our venture Monocle. At the core there's a monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design. Alongside, there's a web-base broadcast component covering the same areas through a variety of bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats. Focus on informing and entertaining an international audience of disillusioned readers, listeners and viewers, it is our intention to create a community of the most interested and interesting people in the world.

Edited out of London, Monocle is staffed by a team pulled from the world's leading news outlets, magazines and broadcasters. Conceived by Wallpaper* founder and Financial Times columnist Tyler Brûlé, the launch team calls on some of his old alumni and new talent from The Independent, the BBC, Branches of Condé Nast and a host of other news outlets. Versed in politics, popular culture, business affairs, media, architecture and design, the editorial team will cover the world from its London hub and dedicated bureaux in Tokyo, Zurich and New York. Monocle will be driven by offering original, never-before-seen content to an audience of well-heeled, intelligent opinion leaders around the world.

monocle.com

Lol@merc

design observer has an article about this now, and notes the older, original publication with the same title.

“This earlier Monocle was the smartly literate and hilariously funny American satirical magazine, published from the late 1950s (as stapled pamphlet and assorted newsletters) through the mid-1960s (as a perfect bound magazine) edited by Victor Navasky, currently editor emeritus of The Nation. This Monocle, headquartered at 80 Fifth Avenue in New York, had the distinction of predating many of the sixties most important alternative publishing institutions, like the “new left” monthlies, Evergreen Review and Ramparts, and was precursor of The National Lampoon.

click to read all that steven heller has to say about monocle!