(01 / the story)
Ten years of manufacturing fascination.
Ford Media Lab opened on September 1, 2016, in a Williamsburg apartment. A magazine deal with Rémy Cointreau paid for the first cameras, and Mount Gay Rum was the first client. Ten years later the lab closed to new work as a two-person hybrid studio in Wynwood, working for the houses its founders used to work inside.
(02 / the founders)
Kyle Ford
co_founder // creative_director // 2016 to 2026
Kyle led creative direction and production at Ford Media Lab. He built the studio’s hands-on capability across photography, design and AI-assisted imagery, and set the standard from concept to final frame. Before FML, he helped build Collectif 1806 at Rémy Cointreau.
Kyle studied economics at Sacramento State and spent four years as a Certified Financial Planner before walking away from it to tend bar, first in San Francisco at Savoy Tivoli, Rye and 15 Romolo, then in New York at Amor y Amargo, Empellón and Crown. A referral from Steve Schneider of Employees Only brought him to Rémy Cointreau, where he helped build Collectif 1806, the house’s bartender ambassador program. He pushed every ambassador to post their drinks and started shooting his own on a phone and a pocket Sony. Before long the brand’s agencies were asking to use his photos on the brand’s own accounts. On his way out, he pitched 1806 Magazine to his boss, Richard Lambert, then shot and designed both volumes. That was the start of Ford Media Lab. At the lab he set the creative direction, built repeatable production methods and stayed hands-on through capture, compositing and the final grade. He worked with Rachel to turn the brief into a production approach and a consistent standard across formats, and his tool experiments became the studio’s method when they made the work faster, sharper or newly possible. The finance years taught him to read a brand, a market and a P&L at the same time. The martial arts came first: his first job was teaching karate at Kovars in Sacramento, and he holds black belts in Kenpo and Tae Kwon Do, the second tested under Grand Master Jhoon Rhee, with Aikido and Krav Maga along the way.
Rachel Ford
co_founder // managing_partner // 2016 to 2026
Rachel led strategy, editorial and integrated program delivery at Ford Media Lab. She turned a commercial question into a brief, brought the right people together and carried the work through production and distribution. She conducted every interview and wrote both volumes of 1806 Magazine.
Rachel met Kyle at Kovars Karate in Sacramento, where she worked the front desk and was promoted to yellow belt for appearances, despite never really training. She has never fully explained what she was doing there. She studied business at Sacramento State and worked in real estate until she and Kyle quit their jobs, moved to San Francisco and got behind the bar, hers at Cigar Bar and Rickhouse. In New York she worked under Julie Reiner at Lani Kai and Monkey Bar, and alongside Kyle at Amor y Amargo and Empellón. One night she met Tanqueray’s brand manager, and that turned into four years as the brand’s national ambassador for Diageo. She was on the road across the country leading Tanqueray Green Room events for the trade and for consumers, teaching all things gin and cocktails, and serving as the face of the brand, down to an appearance on Bar Rescue. She wrote every word of 1806 Magazine, a Spirited Awards finalist for Best Cocktail and Spirits Publication in 2018 and a top-ten pick again in 2019. At the lab she led strategy, editorial and integrated program delivery: shaping the brief and treatment, developing stories, managing client and collaborator relationships, and coordinating production, channels and reporting. She connected the commercial objective to the people, resources and decisions needed to carry it through. She also managed Bartender at Large and Mover & Shaker Co., which put the lab in rooms it wouldn’t otherwise have reached. Off the clock she paints by number.
(03 / the origin)
Where it started.
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 went out on our own.
Ford Media Lab opened in a Williamsburg apartment and spent its first seven years in Brooklyn earning a reputation for high-fidelity content and strategic intelligence. Those years produced work for global portfolios, client relationships that followed us from brand to brand, and 1806 Magazine, made for Rémy Cointreau and nominated twice for a Spirited Award. In July 2023 the lab moved south to Clearwater, then to Wynwood in July 2025, to a studio built for hybrid production. We kept the Brooklyn hustle and the New York ties, and we owned the entire production loop to the end: one point of accountability, and a vision that arrived at delivery exactly as it left intake.
archive // ford mixology lab era, 2011
(04 / the rooms)
Four rooms in ten years.
suite 402, pencil factory, greenpoint // wall: katie merz
suite 501, pencil factory // remote shoot, 2021
first florida studio, clearwater // decal: baron von fancy
wynwood, miami // hasselblad, 2025 to 2026
(05 / the studio)
How the work got made.
01
brief
Every job started with the commercial question it had to answer, written down before a camera came out.
02
capture
For client work, the product was photographed for real on a Hasselblad in the lab’s studio. The bottle in the frame was the client’s bottle.
03
build
The world around it was made with AI tools, position-matched to the capture so the light agreed.
04
finish
Every frame was composited and graded by hand. That’s where most of the hours went.
05
carry
Content, channels and reporting followed the same brief, for some brands for years.
(06 / the record)
Diageo
Pernod Ricard
Suntory Global Spirits
Rémy Cointreau
Proximo
Clients followed us across career moves. Rémy Cointreau to Cincoro to Roué. Tanqueray to Plymouth Gin to Wolves Whiskey. Ten years, the same people, expanding scopes.
(07 / the timeline)
Ten years, in order.
[2016]
// first_frame
Kyle and Rachel left their jobs together, and Ford Media Lab opened on September 1 in a Williamsburg apartment. A magazine deal with Rémy Cointreau paid for the first cameras, Mount Gay Rum became the first client, and the year closed at six figures.
[2017]
// first_retainer
Plymouth Gin hired the lab to run its US social, the lab’s first big retainer and its first account at Pernod Ricard. The same year it made 1806 Magazine, Volume 1: New York, for Rémy Cointreau, Rachel writing every word and Kyle shooting and building every page, and helped direct the cocktail work on a Cointreau commercial filmed in Brooklyn.
[2018]
// spirited_finalist
Volume 1 was a Top 4 finalist for Best Cocktail and Spirits Publication at the Spirited Awards. On October 16 the lab published its first Redbreast post, the start of six years running the brand’s US channels.
[2019]
// pencil_factory
In February the lab took Suite 402 in Greenpoint’s Pencil Factory, a former rug closet painted black, with a wall by Katie Merz. It ran a six-figure Absolut production out of those 400 square feet, and Volume 2: New Orleans made the Spirited Awards Top 10.
[2020]
// peak_year
Suite 501 opened in February with a view of the East River, weeks before nobody could be in a room. The lab streamed its sets to clients directing from home, had its peak revenue year, and in October placed #70 on Adweek’s list of the 100 fastest-growing agencies.
[2021]
// full_calendar
1800 Tequila kept the studio shooting all year, from a Jarritos collaboration for National Tequila Day to a Las Vegas Raiders partnership, and Maria Tash, a fine-jewelry house, found the lab through its stop motion. In September Kenwood Vineyards brought it into wine.
[2022]
// sonoma_trip
The lab went to Sonoma and came back with enough Kenwood material to carry the account for years. In November Kyle and Rachel led seminars at Chilled 100’s ELEVATE conference in Louisville, while Rémy Cointreau kept the tabletop busy with St-Rémy.
[2023]
// gulf_coast
In July the lab moved its studio to Clearwater, and in December Perrier-Jouët flew down to shoot there, on custom walls and surfaces hand built in the studio for the shoot. Chivas, Three Olives, Stranahan’s and the US Bartenders’ Guild all came through the studio that year.
[2024]
// hybrid_begins
Mount Gay, the lab’s first client, came back for two shoots, and a longtime client from Rémy Cointreau brought the lab to Cincoro. Hybrid work became routine, a real bottle composited into an AI-generated scene for Kenwood and Wolves Whiskey, and Perrier-Jouët returned for a second season.
[2025]
// wynwood
Early in the year the lab went all in on AI production, and in July it moved to Wynwood. Nano Banana arrived in August and digital production finally held up to a premium bottle; Giffard followed that fall, and by December about ninety percent of the output was hybrid.
[2026]
// the_record
The lab built Devil’s Grin’s Visual World and turned ten on September 1. It shipped two experiments, closed to new work in September, moved out of the studio in October and completes its last engagements in December.