Ten years is no small achievement for a magazine

to be part of people’s lives, especially an indie one like The Simple Things. So, we hope you’ll allow us a moment to reflect a little. There’s always debate about our ‘best’ covers; I’ve selected 10 here from the last decade* that captured something special or stood for something important.

GATHERING is the first cover we made as Iceberg Press and it was cook and photographer Catherine Frawley’s first one for us, too. So, it’s fitting that she made our 10th Birthday Cake (p22). Celebrating the season is at the heart of The Simple Things; MAGICAL has the anything’s possible mood of midsummer’s eve, while the snowdrops of CALM are that chink of hope we need at the dog-end of winter. As lovers of all things Scandi, we were early fans of HYGGE in January 2017 and our view of HOME is that you can never have too many nice cushions. We love to POTTER and the summer light and flowers here are just joyous. BELONG was only our second illustrated cover and it also captures joy – of a long walk with a friend on a sunny spring day. We’ve since published many more beautiful illustrations and as my favourite cover is nearly always our last one, LEARN makes the cut here.

Most poignant are the issues we worked so hard to publish during the pandemic, none more so than HOPE in June 2020, where our art editor made a rainbow collage from her button jar when we were all trying to find ways to occupy ourselves at home. There’s one here I had no involvement in, except as an enthusiastic reader, and that’s the very first issue. When the magazine launched in October 2012, it promised ‘to celebrate the simple things that matter most’ and we still try to offer that reminder of how good life can be when you remember to take time to live well. Thank you for reading.