Lost (magazine)

Lost is an independent Shanghai-based biannual magazine focused on travel stories, experiences, and inner thoughts. The magazine is published in both English and Chinese (Mandarin).

History
The magazine was founded in 2014 by Singaporean Nelson Ng, a designer for Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai. He started Lost Magazine for fun and to follow his passion for publishing zines. 500 copies of the first issue were released, followed by 750 reprints. The contributors of the first issue were mainly Ng's coworkers at W+K.

In 2017, Ng quit his day job to work from his home studio and focus on the production of Lost. By 2020, the magazine grew to 3000 prints per issue.

Description
Lost is a biannual bilingual (English and Chinese) magazine about travel, but adopts a first-person point of view only : "most travel magazines tell you about the beautiful beaches or amazing cuisine of exotic places. It’s none of that. What Lost offers is personal stories and reflections from travel." The magazine takes external writers' submissions, but rejects any article that sounds like a travel guide with touring tips. To describe the philosophy of his magazine, Ng refers to Lin Yutang's quote:

The magazine's paper is a 70-gram recycled paper from China, which soothes visuals and gives it a earthy tone. Each issue covers ten stories in 200 pages.

Some libraries have refused to distribute the magazine because they found it too hard to classify.