I never read the Economist. But I do look at the pictures.

Here’s two illustrated executions from the new Economist campaign alongside an old classic from the series.

While the black and red design style that had been recently developed by AMV remains, this new series differs from previous work for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, while previous ads had used graphic ideas sparingly, (David Abbott rationed them back in the day, believing it should be a campaign of words rather than pictures) this time there are no headlines at all. Instead a series of visual puzzles and metaphors are used to express the same simple idea consistently throughout.

And secondly these ads were not produced by AMV.

No idea if this spells the end of their long and successful relationship with the brand they helped define, but if so The Economist is hardly walking into the unknown, as Dave Dye is responsible for both the new and old Economist work shown here.

That lad could go far we reckon.