Brighton-based writer and designer Phoebe Wellsted turned post-graduation uncertainty into a virtual magazine that now gives women and LGBTQ+ creatives a platform to share their work, their voices and their talents across five issues and counting.
It started with an Instagram account and a column that never quite launched. Phoebe Wellsted had just graduated, wanted desperately to create and had no idea where to begin. The experience of being stuck in the classic post-education loop, needing experience to get a job and needing a job to get experience, pushed her inward and then, eventually, outward. She spent over a year designing and redesigning, giving up and restarting, too nervous to do it alone. Then the idea grew into something bigger than herself.
whyilovepink is a virtual magazine now on its fifth issue, built to give women and femme-presenting people a platform to put their work in front of the world. The scope has expanded well beyond Wellsted’s original vision of a personal writing column into a space where contributors share creative work across writing, photography, music and visual art. The timing, as Wellsted puts it, makes that platform feel more necessary than ever: a space for women and the LGBTQ+ community to be heard and to believe in the value of what they make.
The name is rooted in something personal. Wellsted’s aunt was, as she describes, the pink aunt: pink car, pink hair, pink nails, pink kitchen cabinets. Pink, in that memory, means support, love and boldness. That meaning has since expanded in the hands of the magazine’s contributors.
“For many women, pink is seen as an embodiment of their femininity, their gender and their power,” contributor Em Batey writes. “But to me, pink signifies humanity. All of us share shades of pink, whether it be our hearts, our lips, our eyes after crying. Pink is a reminder that we are all made of the same matter. That we’ll all care and love and bleed the same.”
Evie, twelve years old and already a contributor, puts it more directly: “Pink is warm and pink means love, pink is also happiness. When I see pink I think of feminism.”
Wellsted is honest about where the magazine sits: still growing, constantly changing, still finding its feet. That openness is part of its character. Alongside editing and publishing the work of others, she writes her own column, What I Hate About Myself, which takes on the project of learning to love insecurities and being kinder to ourselves, the kind of writing that makes readers feel seen rather than advised. The magazine is, as she says, her digital display of love and admiration for women’s and LGBTQ+ creations. It began because she felt alone in the creative world. It continues because she found out she was not.
Phoebe Wellsted is a writer and designer based in Brighton, exploring graphic design and editorial work. She is the founder and editor of whyilovepink.
whyilovepink, virtual magazine, Issue 5. Contributors quoted: Em Batey (@alessiamavak), Evie. Photography credits: Izzy (@izzy_blue_), @mg.imgs. Featured contributors include @girlapocrypha.mp3 and @wearecowz.
