The image forming method comprises, electrostatically charging an image bearing member using a contact charging assembly, forming an electrostatic latent image on the image bearing member thus charged, developing the electrostatic latent image with a magnetic toner to form a toner image and transferring the toner image to a transfer medium, wherein the charging assembly comprises a magnetic brush formed from conductive magnetic particles magnetically bound, and the charging assembly comes into contact with the image bearing member to charge the surface of the image bearing member by directly injecting charges into the electron level present on the surface of the image bearing member and the magnetic toner has a value of .sigma..D..delta. of 150 or less, where the value is obtained by multiplying i) a magnetization quantity .sigma. (Am.sup.2 /kg) in a magnetic field of 1K oersted as measured by a vibration magnetometer, ii) a weight average particle diameter (D.sub.4) D (.mu.m) of the magnetic toner and iii) a density .delta. (g/cm.sup.3) thereof.