Background/Context:
Balmoral Defender partnered with American menswear designer Todd Snyder to launch “The Rugged Gentleman Collection,” a limited series of x10 restored vintage Land Rover Defenders. The first release, “Collection 001: City Black,” reimagines a 1998 Defender 90 through an urban lens of utility meets luxury.

Design Solution:
Our goal was to translate a $300,000+ automotive masterpiece and partnership into a visual narrative and brand world that celebrates heritage restoration and modern urban luxury. Through design, photography, film, and launch events, we built a brand world that extends the vehicle’s story—where utility and luxury collide through the lens of a ruggedly refined New York City.

Branding:
As part of the campaign, we developed a flexible visual system designed to support collaboration-led storytelling. Central to the project was the development of a dual-logo system for Balmoral Defender. We engineered a visual identity built on bold, geometric forms designed for a contemporary audience, supported by a secondary heirloom-style script to speak to the British provenance. We also built a typographic system anchored in tracked-out Gothic Sans typography and bold numerals in a variety of weights and scales. The system comes together to deliberately underscore restraint, authorship, and the limited number of editions.

Photography + Launch Film:
Moving away from traditional showroom imagery, the launch photography and film embraced a more editorial sensibility. Working alongside Todd Snyder’s creative team, we staged the shoot in a Brooklyn warehouse environment, pairing raw architectural textures with a refined, pared-back set. The result emphasized contrast—structure against softness, function against elegance—keeping the vehicle as the unquestioned focal point.

The launch film follows a “Rugged Gentleman” through New York City, tracing a day that moves fluidly between neighborhoods and moods. From morning coffee in Tribeca to the layered streets of Williamsburg, the narrative positions both the vehicle and the clothing as expressions of a transportive mindset—one that reframes adventure not as something pastoral, but as something embedded in the rhythm and complexity of city life.

Launch Event:
The brand world extended into a series of intimate launch moments in Miami Beach, hosted in partnership with Cultured Magazine. We translated the New York–centric creative language into the Miami context through a suite of considered printed materials and spatial details, including custom editorial-style newspapers and postcards featuring campaign imagery.

In Summary:
By navigating these contrasts—old and new, classic and modern, function and refinement—we helped articulate a campaign language that frames the collaboration as a cultural moment rooted in design discipline, craft, and enduring luxury.

“Kristen and her team at MLTI NYC are modern storytellers in the truest sense. They understand how to connect brand, design and culture with intention,” said Sarah Martin, CEO of Balmoral Defender. “Their creative direction brought clarity and emotional depth to our vision, translating the craftsmanship of Balmoral Defender into a story that resonates with our core consumer and collector.”