The Grid Ident

Martin Lambie-Nairn

The "King of the Idents" Himself

In the history of Idents there has been no one as popular and prolific as the proclaimed "King of the Idents" Martin Lambie-Nairn. In his time as a graphic designer he has worked for many high profile clients including Channel 4 and the BBC who he has has worked with on numerous occasions delivering breathtaking and stunning Idents for a wide range of channels. Lambie-Nairn's creative excellence and superiority in brand identification (the use of various design elements that when used together convey a certain message about a brand with the audience) has not gone unnoticed as he has been awarded many times for his work including being awarded the title of RDI (Royal Designer for Industry), a Gold D&AD award for his work with Channel 4, a BAFTA award and a lifetime achievement award at the Promax awards 2007 for his contribution to marketing. All of this shows how loved he is by the television Industry and cherished by audiences worldwide.

The Blocks Forming...

After graduating from the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury he began his career in the 60's by working as a temporary assistant for the BBC quickly moving on to working with ITN and London Weekend Television honing and developing his skills in brand identification.

...To Make the Channel 4 Logo

His big break came in 1982 when he helped develop Channel 4's historic "Blocks" Idents which has proven to be one of the most popular iconic in television history using various effects including computer animation to achieve the look of various 3D blocks forming in real time to make a 3D channel 4 logo. The Ident was made to help gain audience attention towards Channel 4 which was relatively new at the time and in doing so it helped Channel 4 grow in popularity from a small channel into a well recognised one, being aired for a total of 14 years.

After working with Channel 4 Lambie-Nairn and his company Lambie-Nairn & Company (founded in 1976) was well recognised as a big up-and-comer in brand identification. In 1987 Lambie-Nairn broke the record for producing the first ever 30 second computer animated Ident for Smarties ever increasing his popularity among the masses.

One of the 30+ Idents Entitled "Blade"

It was among this time that Lambie-Nairn caught the attention of the BBC who hired him as consultant creative director hoping for the same success that he had achieved while working with Channel 4. Lambie-Nairn shortly made that hope a reality by producing the groundbreaking 30+ Idents for BBC Two, initially hoping for these Idents to change the public perception of the BBC from an aging, dull channel to an exciting, modern one they went on to achieve cult status among fans propelling the popularity of BBC Two and the BBC in general to greater heights. Each of the 30+ Idents were ingenious as each was vastly different in style and content. While this is true each Ident had a similar theme with an action occurring always ending in a shot of a large san-serif '2'. For example the Ident entitled "Blade" featured a large sans-serif '2' falling from the ceiling and embedding its corner in a block with the Ident fading out as the '2' stands wobbling.     

BBC's Virtual Globe Ident

Other than the set of BBC Two Idents, Lambie-Nairn has produced many other Idents for BBC One including the very popular 'Virtual Globe' which was used to bring a new breath of life to the original computer originated globe and was hired yet again to produced the highly successful set of 'Balloon' Idents. These Idents featured a red balloon floating around different locations in Britain, in doing so the BBC created an Ident that audiences could relate to. In 2001 he co produced a set of new BBC Two Idents with american visual effects technician Mic Graves. These Idents featured robotic '2's with personailties displaying different actions in different Idents. The Idents were a homage to the Idents Lambie-Nairn originally produced as they all featured the fat san-serif '2' that Lambie-Nairn had created for the set of Idents that he had produced earlier. 

The Art Lambie-Nairn created for EA game Zubo

After major success at the BBC he was dubbed "King of the Idents" by various media sources, rightly earned for his long service in brand identification. Since then Lambie-Nairn's company had produced Idents for many high profile companys and channels including making the original Ident for mobile phone company 02, EA Games, FIFA and many more. In 2008 Lambie-Nairn left Lambie-Nairn & Company the company he had founded to join branding agency Heavenly Group as it's creative director where he overlooks all creative decisions made within the company.

A screenshot of the advert Lambie-Nairn created for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.