CountyLine is a publication, produced like a studio, built around exploration, creativity, and curiosity. We make writing, content, products, and whatever else makes sense, all with the same goal: things that are honest, purposeful, and made with intention.

We talk about pop culture, history, objects, media, travel, exploration, ideas, and pretty much anything else we find interesting enough to spend some time on. It could be an article, a video, a collection of images, an adventure, or something physical we make. There isn’t really a hard boundary around it.

It all comes to an idea of — things are worth paying attention to.

CountyLine didn’t just start with any of that figured out, hell it still really isn’t figured out, but that is the beauty in the process.

It started with me journaling not long after a job was lost and other events were taking place in life. I had a lot going on in my head at the time and found some comfort in just dumping it onto a page. Given the circumstances at the time, I really had plenty to write about.

I knew I wanted to start something. I just had absolutely no idea what that something was.

A few friends who had lost their jobs alongside me wanted to build a “brand” around this idea of CountyLine. Streetwear, fast fashion, and products. Not something I was sure fit with what my idea was, even though I didn’t even know what the idea was. At the time, a “brand” was really the only language we had for what I was trying to describe. But the word never sat right with me.

Brand has been used so much that I’m not even sure what it means anymore.

Everyone has a brand. Everyone is selling something.

I knew that this was not CountyLine.

Eventually, things started creeping in that had nothing to do with me or what was going on in my own life. I’d hear a quote, read a story, watch a movie, stumble into some weird piece of history, or find an idea I couldn’t stop thinking about, and I’d word vomit my take on it onto a page.

Politics. Movies. History. Culture. Objects. Places. People. Design. Whatever I couldn’t shake.

I started keeping an idea vault — basically everything I came across during the day that felt worth remembering. A quote. A screenshot. A place. A person. A Wikipedia rabbit hole. Something someone said. A random thought at midnight.

That vault eventually became the well I kept coming back to — not just for things to write about, but for things I wanted to learn more about.

The internet gives you almost an unlimited supply of interesting things if you’re willing to go looking for them. Between that, procrastination, work, and life generally getting in the way, CountyLine has taken a while to figure itself out.

It probably still is.

But I understand what it is now a hell of a lot more than I did when I started.

The further I got from writing about myself, and the closer I got to writing about things I genuinely found interesting or profound, the more I found my voice, or a style.

The more I watched, read, traveled, and learned, the more I wanted to make something of my own instead of just consuming what everyone else was making.

I like finding cool shit. I like learning why it matters. And I like sharing it with other people.

…Turns out, there is a lot of cool shit out there.

Eventually, all that consuming turned into wanting to create.

The internet moves incredibly fast. Something is interesting for five minutes, everyone talks about it at once, and then we move on to the next thing before the last thing is even finished. Somewhere along the way, a lot of “content” just became noise.

CountyLine is my attempt to move in the other direction.

Spend more time on things. Go down the rabbit hole. Make something because it’s genuinely interesting, not because it’s trending. Pay attention to niche, specific, weird, beautiful, important, or completely unnecessary things simply because someone out there will find it just as interesting.

A lot of that comes from people and publications that made me want to create in the first place: Johnny Harris, Yes Theory, National Geographic, A24, LIFE Magazine, film, and plenty of others who have their own ways to turn curiosity and creativity into something tangible.

There’s still a lot I don’t know how to do.

Writing is a work in progress, but it’s the medium I spend the most time with right now. Photography, products, short-form video, long-form video, bigger expeditions are all things I want CountyLine to grow into.

I don’t really know exactly what CountyLine will look like five or ten years from now.

That’s kind of the point.

Keep exploring. Keep making things. Keep paying attention. Keep sharing it.

See where it goes.

More coming.

-CL