October 28, 2029
Nearly two decades after its last reincarnation folded, Life magazine is coming back to life.
"The iconic magazine, known for its red-box logo and devotion to visual storytelling, will start publishing again next month as a quarterly print magazine. It enters a fractured media landscape that is worlds away from the publication’s midcentury heights of acclaim, before the internet, social media and artificial intelligence upended the business model of magazine publishing.
But Karlie Kloss, the model and entrepreneur who is backing the project through her Bedford Media company, says the legacy of the brand deserved to be reinvigorated and brought into the 21st century. In addition to a website and a social media presence, Life plans to expand into short-form video, documentary films and events.
“What made Life extraordinary was its ability to make the world feel closer,” Ms. Kloss said. “And our responsibility is to preserve and to protect that legacy.”
Life magazine was started in 1936 by Henry Luce, the founder of Time and Fortune magazines. Its first issue featured on its cover a black-and-white photograph by Margaret Bourke-White of the concrete Fort Peck Dam in Montana, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It sold out instantly....
....A monument to the power of photojournalism, Life magazine documented mid-20th-century America, including World War II, the space race and the civil rights movement. It showcased the work of photographers like Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Gordon Parks, leading to indelible images like one of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day in 1945 and portraits of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. "
