REUNION creates the name and the identity for skincare brand Tome

Tome Skincare is built on nearly a decade of research into Spongilla lacustris, a freshwater river sponge that has been used on skin for centuries. Dermata Therapeutics, Tome’s parent company, used the findings to develop the Foundational Treatment – the brand’s first product – a mask used once a week at home. Its hero ingredient is the sponge in powder form, which Tome calls Bioneedle. The product is on sale direct to consumers, while Tome is also building a channel for aestheticians and other skincare professionals alongside it. Los Angeles-based design and strategy studio REUNION was commissioned to create Tome’s identity for the launch. Dermata Therapeutics began investigating the sponge in 2017. “We came to REUNION with the product, the research and a clear understanding of what made the technology unique, but very little else from a brand perspective,” Tome’s VP Marketing Kyra Peckaitis tells us. REUNION and Tome began with research into who would find the product most valuable, how those people approached skincare and what would make them add a treatment like it to a routine. From there, the remit took in the name, brand strategy, packaging, print, digital, films, advertising, website and physical pop-up experiences, across a partnership that ran for over a year. Working from two convictions – routines can be simpler, and natural can be powerful – REUNION arrived at an idea it calls ‘ancestral innovation’ and named the brand Tome. “If you look across the vastness of the skincare space, products typically fall into one of two distinct categories: scientific to the point of cold and clinical, or natural, which leaves you questioning whether the product will even work,” REUNION’s CCO & Co-founder Thomas Wilder explains.