UPPERCASE started as an experiment: an independent, ad-free magazine funded solely by its audience. The editor, a graphic designer by trade, sought to fill a gap in design publications by creating a magazine with excellent design as its foundation but that drew inspiration from a wider range of sources — art, illustration, typography, craft, and vintage culture. UPPERCASE has lived up to its tagline, "for the creative and inquisitive," by consistently delivering content that rewards curiosity and celebrates the handmade, the designed, and the beautifully observed.
The ad-free model is not an afterthought. It is the structural principle that makes the magazine possible: without advertisers to satisfy, the editorial team is free to publish exactly what interests them, in whatever format serves the content best. The result is a publication that feels personal in a way that most design magazines do not — as if the editor made it for herself and then invited everyone else to look over her shoulder.
In a design media landscape that can tend toward the slick and the corporate, UPPERCASE is a reminder that the most engaging design publications are often the ones made by people who simply love making things and want to share that love with others.