Love seeing the photos that are being posted of the old adverts - so thought I’d share something we found when we were going through things here in Salisbury… boxes of original adverts, drafts of unreleased adverts, and lots more!
We’ve been busy framing some of them up to take pride of place in our reception, and definitely taking some inspiration from them for some future plans
Here’s a sneak preview of some that we’ve framed up so far:
Charlie, that’s a fine collection. Now, if you are thinking of drawing inspiration from the past perhaps it’s time you started making decent speakers so that you don’t need to use those horrible ear-shredding Focals every time you do a demonstration. Go on, be brave.
That looks really great Charlie and a big improvement over the foyer from last year, giving a sense of product history and tongue in cheek humour. Trouble is some of us who visited with the forum last year have a new excuse to want to visit again
IIRC it was mainly Paul S and Julian. It’s quite fun spotting some of the people in the ads too; Paul would know best who did what, but I think it was Annie Jeanes who featured in the “You’re nobody without a Naim”, Paul S is the louche chap in the Panama waiting for his luggage at Southampton Airport in “First Class”, and I think it’s Danny Haikin who features in “For a Few Dollars More”.
Hopefully Paul S can add more here on the history of the old ad campaigns.
Nigel, While I don’t want to take the thread too far off-topic, I just want to respond to your post and say that it’s a shame you didn’t come to this year’s Hi End show in Munich. The Big Naim Statement system with the Focal Stella Utopia EM Evos was really good. In fact, it was really, really good. I haven’t come away from a demo as impressed in quite a while. It was certainly a testament to the time, care and effort that i know was put into setting up the system, but also what went into the design and build of the Statement amp, and… also what went into the Focals as well. Putting any preconceived prejudices aside, I think you would have been impressed and it might just have changed your mind regarding Focals.
Anyway, with apologies to all, back to the old ads…
Everything is better on the continent - the food, the wine, the weather, the roads, the trains, maybe even the speakers. I hear what you say about Focals, but of course it’s not what one says that counts, but on what one spends one’s hard earned money…
I have to say that I for one loved the old ads and I’m really pleased to see that naim are putting them up in the foyer. The one with the couple looking in the hifi shop window really speaks to me. I spent so many years of my life looking longingly at naim equipment and the gyrodec turntable in hifi shop windows and at hifi shows before I was able to afford either!! The entry level to naim ownership always was high and it always did require sacrifice - in my case working double shifts in a student bar job even to achieve my first nait 1.
Perhaps that sacrifice and the effort it took to attain it has made my joy of using it all the greater. I recently moved up to a NAC82 after 20 years with a NAC102 and have been loving that too! I feel like I haven’t yet scaled mount Everest (which for me would be a 52) but I’m standing on top of Annepurna!
Personally I love the T shirt that says on the back ‘You’re nobody without a naim’ - it’s just so cool, even today and I would buy one if naim decided to sell them as merchandise!!
Here is a low res scan of an advert I designed for Paul Stephenson/Julian Vereker.
It mentions the New NAC52 so must have been around that time.
This ad was the first use of the hand drawn type from my naim cd001 Logo - I have my original sketch of that which I will post up at the next opportunity! The new logo was actually used on the front cover of all the product manuals I designed, despite the ‘Double Circle’ logo Olive range on the pages inside! There was a deliberate slow transition to the CD Logo (as I called it), but it eventually became the badge on the loudspeakers and subsequently the Logo on all the products when naim entered the ‘Black Box’ era.
I recall this ad was done in a rush for a deadline - the picture was all we had to use so I added the letters and got the type to fit inside it - sorry, I can’t remember who wrote the copy.
This design preceded the Bat advert bottom right on picture 2 that was posted, which I wasn’t involved with, but uses my full logo design - echoing the naim manual covers I did.
There are certain people on here always concerned with the impacts of regime change. I for one hope they find some reassurance in the approach to the ad archive. Showing respect for your past will always stage you in good stead.
The picture was taken by Andy Cahill at Photoworks Bournemouth.
I designed the basic layout to follow the previous design but decided to do something quirky with the typography to set it apart from the other brands.
