New York mag Gayletter feels celebratory and looks bloody great

It’s not just the beautiful boys, pops of candy pink and considered, but effortless-seeming look and feel of Gayletter that’s made me fall slightly in love with it on the first flick through. I think it’s chimed so much in its sense of positivity – a feel of community and working together to celebrate what’s positive and beautiful in not only gay culture, but in society more widely. The second issue of the mag arrived in the post recently all the way from New York, and greeted with that sunny, fun cover image of a pretty young thing cradling a bunch of big yellow sunflowers, we couldn’t really resist it.

Gayletter started life in 2008 as a weekly newsletter to help people in the New York gay scene “figure out what to do with your free time,” say its founders Tom Jackson and Abi Benitez. It’s since expanded into a site with video, lots of very very fun party pics and interviews, but today we’re celebrating the print version. Abi takes care of the magazine’s design, and describes the aesthetic as “clean, bold, straight forward and modern.”

Abi adds: “While the newsletter and website lean toward more immediate event-based content, the magazine distills the spirit of Gayletter to create a collectible and enduring publication.”

What really got us is the sense of celebration, choosing to feature gay men in the creative industries from film to illustration to photography who are doing something interesting, fun and beautiful. There’s a lovely feature on painter Jack Early, whose early 90s show was panned and caused him to totally withdraw from the art world until a triumphant return at Miami Basel nearly 20 years later. The imagery throughout the mag is sumptuous and tied together with a pared-back look and feel that lets the content shine. “Gayletter magazine is the first post-gay publication to embrace the best of queer culture while disregarding labels and categories,” Abi says. And long may it continue to do so.