Unspoken Agreement designs Skinmetal with young men as co-founders

Sun care targeted at young men typically follows a predictable path – either clinical warnings about UV damage or hyper-masculine posturing with dark bottles and aggressive typography. Skinmetal, an SPF and skincare brand founded by paediatrician and melanoma survivor Dr Wendy Sue Swanson, rejects both approaches entirely. Instead of designing for teenage boys, New York and Colorado-based Unspoken Agreement designed with them, building a brand where the target audience held genuine creative authority from the start. The Foundry, as the group became known, wasn’t a traditional focus group convened for validation. These teenage boys – sons, friends of friends, young men – who wanted to participate, functioned as co-founders with decision-making power. Every major creative direction was pressure-tested through their feedback, with many attending presentations to give live responses. “If something didn’t resonate with them or if it felt try-hard or juvenile, it didn’t move forward,” explains Saxon Campbell and Robin Kannard, Co-founders of Unspoken Agreement. “These young men were serious and gave invaluable, thoughtful feedback into building this brand as one they could fully buy into.” This collaborative process shaped an identity that balances industrial strength with emotional authenticity. The packaging, built around a predetermined tottle form, deliberately avoids the soft, cosmetic silhouettes that flood sun care shelves. “The Daily Metal tottle purposefully feels engineered, functional and almost tactical,” notes Campbell and Kannard. The brand pairs deep, tactical tones with cinematic imagery of young men outside, laughing and competing – mixing hard materials with softer moments to create what the studio describes as space for masculinity to be “real, expressive, and multidimensional.”