Martin Lambie-Nairn

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

Martin Lambie-Nairn, Creative Director at Heavenly, is acknowledged as one the world’s authorities on television brand identity. Born on 4th August 1945 and educated atUniversity College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Martin has described his own career in design as 'varied' .

Early Career

Martin began his career in the world of television in the 1960's joining the BBC as a temp. He went on to work as a graphic designer in three other UK TV companies, Rediffusion, ITN and London Weekend Television. Martin set up his own company in the mid-1970's after leaving LWT and went on to develop new graphic presentation techniques for the current affairs programme Weekend World..

Channel 4 & Spitting Image

Computer animation in the 1980's enabled him to produce the revolutionary identity for Channel 4, which launched the fledgling channel on 2nd November 1982 and remained at the heart of the channel’s on-air presentation for 14 years, having a profound impact on both television graphic design and advertising. In 1981 he also conceived the original idea for the UK TV series Spitting Image which ran for 11 years.

For the next ten years he worked as a director of computer animated commercials. These productions included the first ever 30 second computer generated ad in the UK, a TV commercial for Smarties. He went on to define the craft of branding for television, creating identities for Channel 4, Carlton TV and Central TV.

The Nineties

In the nineties he returned to the BBC as a consultant creative director, a position he held for the next 12 years, during this time Martin and his company went on to design a series of 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 an RDI (Royal Designer for Industry) , has been president of D&AD 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.

Heavenly

Martin is currently Creative Director of Heavenly and works daily on projects as a designer and consultant. His philosophy of making complicated thing simple remains a core part of the business as does balancing commercial imperatives with creativity.

External Links

http://www.heavenly.co.uk

Publications

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