Life Magazine Returns With Quarterly Print Edition in November

Life magazine will return to print next month as a quarterly publication, nearly two decades after its last revival ended. Backed by model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss through her company Bedford Media, the American publication plans to combine print journalism with a website, social media, short-form video, documentary films and events.

The relaunch brings back a magazine known for its distinctive red-box logo and visual storytelling. According to the publication's relaunch announcement, the project aims to preserve Life's historical legacy while adapting its presence to a media industry transformed by the internet, social media and artificial intelligence.

Kloss said the magazine's ability to connect readers with events and people around the world remains central to its identity.

“What made Life extraordinary was its ability to make the world feel closer,” Kloss said. “And our responsibility is to preserve and to protect that legacy.”

Life was founded in 1936 by Henry Luce, who also established Time and Fortune magazines. Its inaugural issue featured a black-and-white photograph by Margaret Bourke-White showing the concrete Fort Peck Dam in Montana, a project associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The issue sold out immediately, according to the magazine's historical account.

Over subsequent decades, Life became a prominent platform for photojournalism, documenting major events in American history, including World War II, the space race and the civil rights movement. Its photographers included Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Gordon Parks.

Among the magazine's best-known images was Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day in 1945. Life also published portraits of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, helping establish photography as a defining feature of its editorial identity.

The publication extended beyond photography into literature and cultural reporting. It published Ernest Hemingway's entire novella “The Old Man and the Sea” and commissioned Norman Mailer to cover the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

Life's circulation exceeded eight million copies at its peak in the 1960s. However, the growing popularity of television contributed to changes across the magazine industry, and Time Inc. discontinued the weekly edition in 1972.

The magazine returned in 1978 as a monthly publication. Time Inc. announced in 2000 that it would end regular publication, although the brand subsequently experienced another revival before that version folded nearly two decades ago.

The forthcoming edition will enter a publishing market substantially different from the one in which Life established its reputation. Bedford Media plans to extend the revived brand across print and digital formats, with documentary production and live events forming part of its broader publishing strategy.