Meet Elyon of CTRL+ALT+SYNC MAGAZINE

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elyon.

Hi Elyon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I always knew I would create a magazine one day, but I was waiting for God to tell me when. At the end of 2024, I felt Him tell me that it was time to begin. I had already been a writer and pop culture aficionado for most of my life, and magazines shaped so much of how I experienced culture growing up, so CTRL+ALT+SYNC (CAS) brought together things that had naturally been part of me for a long time.
CAS was always going to be a print magazine. I considered making it available digitally too, but with so much already living online, I felt this deserved to exist physically. Social media still gives us a daily presence and allows us to build our online community, but print was always at the heart of the idea.
The first issue took about a year to complete. I was learning how to make a magazine while making one, navigating the reality of funding it on my own, scouting, scheduling, coordinating with international talent, dealing with fear, anxiety, and my own fixation on getting every detail right. My faith carried me through that process, as my COO helped me facilitate the vision, and the creatives who trusted the idea shaped the magazine with their work.
That year resulted in a 126-page first issue created with 42 Black contributors. Seeing the first print run sell out at launch, and later being able to restock it, affirmed that people still want tangible Black media. Our community activations and events have also allowed us to explore what CAS can look like as a physical community, while our audience continues to grow online. Today, I lead CAS as its Founder and Editor-in-Chief, and although it may seem like we’ve built a lot, it still feels like we are at the very beginning of what it can become.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. Beyond learning the publishing process in real time, one of the biggest challenges was carrying so much of the production myself, managing contributors and timelines while creative directing and designing the entire issue, all while balancing the scale of the vision with the realities of independently funding a print publication. Internally, fear, anxiety and perfectionism sometimes made it difficult to know whether I was protecting the quality of the work or hesitating because I was afraid to move forward. I had to learn the difference between care and fear.
I do not romanticize how difficult it was, and building CAS is still an ongoing learning process. The challenge now is creating more sustainable systems for future issues while keeping the same level of care. The process has taught me how much patience, collaboration and resourcefulness this work requires, but it has also made me even more certain that CAS deserves the time it takes to build it properly.

As you know, we’re big fans of CTRL+ALT+SYNC MAGAZINE. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
CTRL+ALT+SYNC, or CAS, is a Black culture magazine and creative platform documenting Black creativity across fashion, art, film, music, and the spaces where culture is actually happening. We believe that work deserves to be recognized and treated with care while it is still being created, before fame or mainstream validation determines that it matters. We cover emerging and established creatives through our own lens, giving both a place within the same cultural record.

Print is at the heart of CAS because it creates a permanent record that Black people can physically own, revisit and preserve, particularly in a digital landscape where algorithms and rapidly moving attention spans can determine what remains visible and what disappears. Alongside the magazine, we use digital storytelling, original editorials and community experiences to cover culture in real time and bring creatives together. At its core, CAS gives Black creative work the space to be seen in its full range and remembered.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
More than anything, I hope readers see themselves as part of what CAS is building. Independent Black media grows through people choosing to read it, support it, share it and show up for it. Issue 01 is currently restocked at ctrlaltsyncmag.com, and I hope people experience it for themselves, discover work they may not have encountered otherwise, and continue supporting the creatives beyond the pages of the magazine.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ctrlaltsyncmag.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ctrl.alt.sync
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CtrlAltSyncMag
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@ctrlaltsync