[laboratory_origin]
archive // ford mixology lab era, 2011
The story starts behind the bar. Or just before it: two corporate careers traded for a one-way move to San Francisco and the craft cocktail world. Three years behind the stick across San Francisco and New York followed, then five inside the brand houses themselves, leading trade programs for Diageo and Rémy Cointreau. Those years meant training bartenders, building advocacy programs, and sitting in the rooms where global budgets met agency decks. That seat came with a view most agencies never get: we were the client. We approved the estimates, sat through the markups, the fragmented vendor chains, and the slow erosion of strategic intent that legacy agency models call process. In 2016, we built the remedy.
Ford Media Lab opened in a Brooklyn studio and spent its first seven years earning a reputation for high-fidelity content and strategic intelligence. Those years produced work for global portfolios, an independent print publication nominated for a Spirited Award, and client relationships that still follow us from brand to brand. In 2023 the engine moved south, first to a Gulf Coast laboratory in Clearwater, then to Miami in 2025: a vertical facility built to house the Studio-to-Server pipeline and the computational production it demands. We kept the Brooklyn hustle and the New York ties. We own the entire production loop, which means one point of accountability and a vision that arrives at delivery exactly as it left intake.
our first brooklyn studio // artist: katie merz
miami laboratory, hasselblad // present tense
first florida studio, clearwater // decal: baron von fancy
[the_laboratory_timeline // tactical_milestones]
[2009-2016] // industry_ascensionMastering the trade. Craft cocktail years across San Francisco and New York, then five years of internal trade marketing leadership for Diageo and Rémy Cointreau. The lab already had its initials: FML began as Ford Mixology Lab, our cocktail consultancy, before media became the medium.[2016-2023] // brooklyn_innovation
Solving for friction. The lab opens in Brooklyn and spends seven years building a reputation for high-fidelity content and strategic intelligence, one studio, one painted wall, and one repurposed sound room at a time.[2023-2025] // gulf_coast_chapter
Heading south. The lab trades Brooklyn for Florida's Gulf Coast: a Clearwater studio, a new door, and the production foundation the next engine would demand.[2025-present] // miami_expansion
Upgrading the engine. The Miami laboratory opens: a vertical facility built to house the Studio-to-Server pipeline and the computational production behind it.
[technical_leadership]
[01] // rachel_ford
Title: Managing Partner
Core Protocol: Strategic Systems & Operational Management
Sector Background: Former National Brand Ambassador for Tanqueray, with five years of internal trade marketing leadership built on a foundational career in mixology. Rachel runs the lab the way she ran a national brand program: definitive roadmaps, written scopes, and client systems that don't slip. She leads editorial and deck production, owns the operational standard, and holds every creative expansion accountable to commercial logic. Partners feel it as a simple fact: nothing leaves the lab off-brief, off-brand, or late.
[02] // kyle_ford
Title: Creative Director
Core Protocol: Visionary Execution & Technical Experimentation
Sector Background: Former Spirits Expert for Rémy Cointreau, with five years inside the trade before founding the lab. A self-taught photographer who built the lab's technical standard from the first camera onward, Kyle directs every capture and every computational expansion, testing new production methods the same week they exist. He decides fast, shoots faster, and holds the work to a bar most agencies would call unreasonable. Partners feel it as range: one creative director accountable from concept through final pixel.
What Clients Say
(Testimonials)
Two founders. One loop.
