We’re pleased to let Idea Peepshow readers hear this first: Fast Horse is on the verge of launching a new lifestyle brand called Modern Midwest.

This is a big step for Fast Horse, and one we’re sure will reshape our business for years to come. And in the process, we believe we’re pushing into some unexplored marketing territory. More on that later.

So what is Modern Midwest? Simply put, it’s a brand that is building a community of modern design enthusiasts in the Midwest. Modern Midwest is a home for all things modern — architecture, furniture, interior design, dining, landscape architecture, sustainability, urban planning and more.

Modern Midwest will unite aficionados and anyone with even a casual interest in modern living and design with tastemakers, leading practitioners and influential thinkers. We will invite brands into the community, giving them a way to share information and tell the stories behind their products and services in some new and highly relevant ways.

We will bring value to everyone involved through information and inspiration, through community and commerce. We plan to launch Modern Midwest in Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit and St. Louis — adding more Midwestern markets as we pick up steam.

At the core of Modern Midwest will be content — timely, inspiring, surprising and thought-provoking stories that will celebrate and define the Midwest’s distinct take on modern living. We plan to launch our website and other digital offerings this spring.

Modern Midwest will be far more than a website. We envision events, tours, awards, pop-up stores and more. We plan to assemble an advisory group of leading practitioners and tastemakers from a variety of disciplines.

We also see Modern Midwest as a laboratory of sorts, where we will help define the new ways that brands are interacting with consumers. We’ve been thinking a lot about “native advertising” lately — commercial content that does not stand alone as as advertising, but instead is fully integrated into a communication channel. With Modern Midwest, we aim to show that audiences crave material that is useful, entertaining and compelling … and if that content originates with a brand, so be it.

We’ll have a lot more to share about Modern Midwest in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, give us a “like” on Facebook, where we’ve started building our community to celebrate and grow modernism in the Midwest.