Martin Lambie-Nairn
Encyclopedia
Martin Lambie-Nairn is one of the most influential British
graphic designer
s. He was the founder of his eponymous branding agency, Lambie-Nairn & Company
, and is currently the creative director of branding agency Heavenly Group Ltd
. His work mainly concentrates on brand identity for television. Martin is acknowledged for having redefined television brand identity design – merging the graphical qualities typical of printed communication with the range of possibilities offered by the media of television. His philosophy of making complicated thing simple remains a core part of his career as does balancing commercial imperatives with creativity.
Amongst his most celebrated works are: the original Channel 4
logo and idents created in 1982; the ground-breaking batch of 30+ idents
for BBC Two
that first aired on February 16, 1991; and the 1997 corporate rebrand for the whole BBC
. He, in conjunction with his agency, also created launch packages for certain other BBC channels.
at Rediffusion
, ITN and London Weekend Television
followed. Martin set up his own company, Robinson Lambie-Nairn, with fellow partner Colin Robinson in 1976 after leaving LWT, and he went on to develop new graphic presentation techniques for Weekend World
. To coincide with the business' substantial expansion the company was renamed Lambie-Nairn & Company
in 1990.
Computer animation enabled him to produce what became regarded as a revolutionary identity for Channel 4
, the "Blocks" logo, with help from visual effects technicians based in Los Angeles
, California
. This identity launched the fledgling TV channel on 2 November 1982. This identity 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 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, which was a commercial for Smarties.
shown on BBC Two that were talked about as much as the programmes and commissioned by then-controller Alan Yentob
. Most of the idents in this set and additional idents that were added later in the series' run were mainly practical and employed traditional camera methods, with the CGI
-generated Optics ident being the notable exception. Meanwhile, for BBC1
he forsook computer animation in favour of these camera methods to remake
its popular globe ident, replacing the previous ident, the Computer Originated World
.
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.
He would be appointed again by the BBC that year to design and build the famous red hot air balloon
that was used for a new series of idents aired on BBC One from October 4, which aimed to capture the idea that the channel gave a view of what was happening all over Britain, and more idents for BBC Two that also began on October 4. He also co-conceived the Rhythm & Movement idents for BBC One
first shown on March 29, 2002. In 2001, he worked with American
visual effects
technician Mic Graves to co-design BBC Two's 2001-2007 Personality 2s series of idents, which featured robotic figure 2s, each displaying individual personalities, which went on the air on November 18. Martin also designed ident packages for BBC News 24
(now called BBC News), BBC Choice
, CBeebies
, CBBC
and BBC Four
.
as Creative Director. He oversees all of the creative output of the branding agency.
(Royal Designer for Industry), Fellow of the Royal Television Society
, and was, for a time, the president of the Design and Art Direction Charity
. He has received a Gold D&AD Award for his work for Channel 4, a Silver D&AD Award and a BAFTA Award 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
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
s. He was the founder of his eponymous branding agency, Lambie-Nairn & Company
Lambie-Nairn
Lambie-Nairn is an international branding agency within the WPP Group, headquartered in London with offices in Munich, Madrid, Abu Dhabi and Prague...
, and is currently the creative director of branding agency Heavenly Group Ltd
Heavenly Group Ltd
Heavenly Group Limited, trading under the name Heavenly, is an independent branding agency founded by Richard Sunderland in 2002. The company is headquartered in London but services clients on a worldwide basis....
. His work mainly concentrates on brand identity for television. Martin is acknowledged for having redefined television brand identity design – merging the graphical qualities typical of printed communication with the range of possibilities offered by the media of television. His philosophy of making complicated thing simple remains a core part of his career as does balancing commercial imperatives with creativity.
Amongst his most celebrated works are: the original Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
logo and idents created in 1982; the ground-breaking batch of 30+ idents
BBC Two 1991-2001 idents
BBC Two '1991-2001' idents were broadcast from 16 February 1991 until 19 November 2001 on BBC Two. The idents were created by branding agency Lambie-Nairn, who also created the Channel 4 logo still used to this day. The idents consist of a sans-serif '2', enlarged in the middle on-screen,...
for BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
that first aired on February 16, 1991; and the 1997 corporate rebrand for the whole BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. He, in conjunction with his agency, also created launch packages for certain other BBC channels.
Early work
Martin was educated at University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury. His career in television began in the 1960s as a temp at the BBC. Roles as a graphic designerGraphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
at Rediffusion
Rediffusion
Rediffusion was a business which distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK...
, ITN and London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
followed. Martin set up his own company, Robinson Lambie-Nairn, with fellow partner Colin Robinson in 1976 after leaving LWT, and he went on to develop new graphic presentation techniques for Weekend World
Weekend World
Weekend World is a British television political series, made by London Weekend Television and broadcast from 1972 to 1988.Created by John Birt not long after he moved to LWT, the series was broadcast on the ITV network at lunchtimes on Sundays...
. To coincide with the business' substantial expansion the company was renamed Lambie-Nairn & Company
Lambie-Nairn
Lambie-Nairn is an international branding agency within the WPP Group, headquartered in London with offices in Munich, Madrid, Abu Dhabi and Prague...
in 1990.
Computer animation enabled him to produce what became regarded as a revolutionary identity for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, the "Blocks" logo, with help from visual effects technicians based in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. This identity launched the fledgling TV channel on 2 November 1982. This identity 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 created the original idea for the UK TV series Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
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, which was a commercial for Smarties.
The BBC years
For nearly 12 years in the 1990s and after he became consultant creative director at the BBC, his first relationship with the BBC since his early career with them as a temp in the 1960s. During this period Martin and his company designed a series of what were to become phenomenally successful idents for the BBC, including thoseBBC Two 1991-2001 idents
BBC Two '1991-2001' idents were broadcast from 16 February 1991 until 19 November 2001 on BBC Two. The idents were created by branding agency Lambie-Nairn, who also created the Channel 4 logo still used to this day. The idents consist of a sans-serif '2', enlarged in the middle on-screen,...
shown on BBC Two that were talked about as much as the programmes and commissioned by then-controller Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...
. Most of the idents in this set and additional idents that were added later in the series' run were mainly practical and employed traditional camera methods, with the CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
-generated Optics ident being the notable exception. Meanwhile, for BBC1
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
he forsook computer animation in favour of these camera methods to remake
BBC One 'Virtual Globe' ident
The "Virtual Globe" was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between 16 February 1991 and 3 October 1997.-Launch:The Virtual Globe replaced the Computer Originated World on 16 February 1991 and was designed by Martin Lambie-Nairn, owner of the Lambie-Nairn design agency...
its popular globe ident, replacing the previous ident, the Computer Originated World
Computer Originated World
The Computer Originated World was the method of creating the BBC1 symbol that was used between February 1985 and February 1991. It was later used by the international, commercial television service BBC World Service Television from it's launch until c.1994.-Launch:The Computer Originated World...
.
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.
He would be appointed again by the BBC that year to design and build the famous red hot air balloon
Hot air balloon
The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...
that was used for a new series of idents aired on BBC One from October 4, which aimed to capture the idea that the channel gave a view of what was happening all over Britain, and more idents for BBC Two that also began on October 4. He also co-conceived the Rhythm & Movement idents for BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
first shown on March 29, 2002. In 2001, he worked with American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
visual effects
Visual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
technician Mic Graves to co-design BBC Two's 2001-2007 Personality 2s series of idents, which featured robotic figure 2s, each displaying individual personalities, which went on the air on November 18. Martin also designed ident packages for BBC News 24
BBC News 24
BBC News is the BBC's 24-hour rolling news television network in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...
(now called BBC News), BBC Choice
BBC Choice
BBC Choice was a BBC TV station which launched on 23 September 1998 and closed on 9 February 2003. It was the first British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in digital format, and was the first new channel from the BBC since BBC Two launched in 1964...
, CBeebies
CBeebies
CBeebies is the brand used by the BBC for programming aimed at children 6 years and under. It is used as a themed strand in the UK on terrestrial television, as a separate free-to-air domestic British channel and used for international varients supported by advertising, subscription or both...
, CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
and BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
.
Heavenly
In April 2008 Martin left the practice he pioneered to join HeavenlyHeavenly Group Ltd
Heavenly Group Limited, trading under the name Heavenly, is an independent branding agency founded by Richard Sunderland in 2002. The company is headquartered in London but services clients on a worldwide basis....
as Creative Director. He oversees all of the creative output of the branding agency.
Awards
Martin has been acclaimed for his work and creative excellence. He is an RDIRDI
RDI can refer to:* Real Disposable Income, the amount of national income left over after taxes and inflation* Reference Daily Intake , a quantity of recommended nutrient intake...
(Royal Designer for Industry), Fellow of the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
, and was, for a time, the president of the Design and Art Direction Charity
D&AD
Design and Art Direction is a British educational charity which exists to promote excellence in design and advertising...
. He has received a Gold D&AD Award for his work for Channel 4, a Silver D&AD Award and a BAFTA Award 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
University of Lincoln
The University of Lincoln is an English university founded in 1992, with origins tracing back to the foundation and association with the Hull School of Art 1861....
.