Martin Lambie-Nairn

Martin Lambie-Nairn
Born	4 August 1945
Occupation	Creative Director
Website	http://www.heavenly.co.uk

Martin Lambie-Nairn (born 4 August 1945) is Creative Director at Heavenly. He was educated atUniversity College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury.

Early career

Martin's career in television began in the 1960s as a temp at the BBC. Roles as a graphic designer at Rediffusion, ITN and London Weekend Television followed. Martin set up his own company in the mid-1970s after leaving LWT and went on to develop new graphic presentation techniques for Weekend World.

Channel 4 and Spitting Image

Computer animation enabled him to produce what became regarded as a revolutionary identity for Channel 4. His identity launched the fledgling TV channel on 2 November 1982 and it remained at the heart of the channel’s on-air presentation for 14 years, having a immeasurable effect on both television graphic design and advertising. In 1981 he created the original idea for the UK TV series Spitting Image which ran for 11 years.

Following the success of Channel 4 and Spitting Image, he worked as a director of computer animated commercials, producing the first ever 30 second computer generated TV advertisement in the UK, a commercial for Smarties. He went on to define the craft of branding for television, creating identities for Channel 4, Carlton TV and Central TV.

BBC channel identities

For 12 years in the nineties he became consultant creative director at the BBC. During this period Martin and his company designed a series of what were to become phenomenally successful idents for the BBC. He helped to revitalise the image of BBC2 with ingenious and unpredictable logos that were talked about as much as the programmes. For BBC1, he forsook computer animation in favour of traditional camera methods. In the latter part of the decade he designed and built the famous red balloon used as an ident by BBC1, which aimed to capture the idea that the channel gave a view of what was happening all over Britain. His services have been sought by media companies from the US and Norway, among others.

Brand Identity for Television: With Knobs On

In 1997, he wrote Brand Identity for Television: With Knobs on , which was illustrated with colour stills, models and preliminary sketches from his own notebooks. He used the book to reveal how key identities, symbols and sequences from his career were achieved. His narrative was complemented by contributions from other important figures in the television industry, including Jeremy Isaacs and Alan Yentob placing Martin’s work in its international context.

Awards

Martin is a Royal Designer for Industry , Fellow of the Royal Television Society , has been president of Design and Art Direction and has been given numerous awards for creative excellence, including a Gold D&AD for the Channel 4 Brand Identity, a Silver D&AD and a BAFTA for his work for BBC2. He has received many industry awards, including a Lifetime Achievement honour at the Promax UK awards for excellence in marketing in 2007. He is also Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of Lincoln.

External links

• National Portrait Gallery Sitting

Publications

• Brand Identity for Television With Knobs On, Phaidon Press, 1997 ISBN 0714834475