M Le magazine du Monde

For its 500th issue, French newspaper supplement M Le magazine du Monde published a special issue last month, collecting together all 500 of its front covers to date. The cover of the special issue was plain white; you had to look inside for the key to that.

A mix of international and French stories, the 500 front covers are reproduced chronologically, a bright selection of celebrity portraits and conceptual images that deserve to be shared as a set like this. Readers can also search the archive online, using subjects and colour (link at the end of this post).

One story that is both international and local is this blank black cover, the week of the Charlie Hebdo killings (above); this is the only true blank cover among the 500 until

As shown at the top of this post, the 500th cover is blank too – even the ‘M’ logo is missing – but only as a surface to be decorated. Inside the issue there’s a sheet of stickers, each using inagery on a different front magery from a different cover (below) – in this case, the image is by the team at Toilet Paper.

Thus every reader could create their own front cover, a simple use of print technology and a fun way to mark a 500th anniversary.

You can see all the covers, and play with the stickers, online.

Editor-in-chief: Marie-Pierre Lannelongue
Creative director: Jean-Baptiste Talbourdet-Napoleone