Dear reader,

I’m Monocle’s creative director. Our chairman, Tyler Brûlé, has asked me to tell you about my Monocle highlights – the best bits of our work in print, audio, digital and events this year.

Sitting at my window seat in our London HQ, I started reminiscing not just about 2025 but about my entire time at Monocle. In a little over a year, the magazine will celebrate its 20th anniversary and I have been fortunate enough to have been here since the beginning – in fact, I was here before it even launched.

I have overseen every page of every issue, book and newspaper – and if you see anything with our little gold M on it, I probably designed that too. So I decided to use a little creative licence, dust off my personal archive and present some of our key moments and achievements from across the years.

A few personal highlights:

1. 
The prelaunch media kit (no Powerpoint here).

2.
Issue 1’s first marketing tool (long before Instagram).

3.
The launch party invites.

4.
An early foray into music. 

5.
The printed material for our first conference in Lisbon.

6.
Our first summer newspaper (being read in Greece).

7. 
Moving to Midori House 15 years ago.