BRITISH POLO GIN
packaging design
2025
ELISAVA
Master in Packaging Design
Marketing
SUPERVISED BY
Asa Cook
Carmen Gonzalez Montarelo
Mar Sanchez-Morate Palop
IN COLLABORATION
Julieta Velasco Gutierrez
This packaging redesign of the British Polo Gin brand, addressing both the visual identity and the physical configuration of the product. The redesign includes an updated logo, a newly conceptualized bottle, and a secondary packaging to accompany the product.
The project is grounded in a storytelling approach that supports both the bottle’s form – inspired by a stirrup – and the graphic identity, which embraces a classic and refined aesthetic. This formal reference reinforces the brand’s close connection to the world of polo while endowing the packaging with a unique and recognizable character. The special case has been designed to highlight this morphology and elevate the perceived value of the overall set, evoking the exclusivity and sophistication inherent to the polo universe.
BUCKMASTER’S STIRRUP
1908. Roehampton Club. International Summer Tournament.
At the start of the final chukker, Walter Buckmaster's horse stumbles, triggering an unexpected movement that causes the right stirrup to snap off the saddle with a metallic crack that echoes through the stands. Buckmaster fails to maintain his balance and falls from his horse.
The crowd holds its breath. His teammates urge him to withdraw. But Walter rises, blood running down his leg, the knee guard embedded deep into the bone, and mounts once again. He adjusts his balance, pressing with his uninjured leg, and continues orchestrating the game with an almost unnatural grace.
He ends the match securing the victory for his team and cements his status as a legend of the sport. No one would forget that historic moment—playing half a chukker injured and without proper support, as if nothing had happened.
Years later, the stirrup, along with the damaged knee guard, was recovered from the stables and quietly donated to the archives of the Hurlingham Polo Museum, as a tribute to that great match and to Buckmaster’s unforgettable legacy in the history of polo.
It was not until 2015, after an injury that pushed him into near depression and forced him to retire from polo, that Rich Hine—a distant descendant of Buckmaster—came across the stirrup and knee guard among a collection of uncatalogued items. As he held the stirrup in his hands, he felt its weight, imagined the tension of that moment, the speed, the fall that occurred but failed to stop his ancestor. He recalled the sport that had brought him so much happiness and pride over the years, and resolved then and there to carry forward both his own legacy and that of his forebear.
And so, British Polo Gin is born— a brand inspired by resilience, by elegance amidst chaos. Because sometimes, the loss of a stirrup or an injury sustained in the game is not the end of one’s story, but the beginning of a legend.
