In the world of WellBeing, economics follow feeling.
The spaces, brands, and experiences that carry a human, felt point of view are the most sought-after in hospitality and real estate and will define the next era of human flourishing.
WellBeing is a generational shift that hasn’t translated at industry level.
THE CHALLENGEWe’ve moved from Wellness performance and optimization toward ritual, restoration, and the quality of being alive.
Meanwhile, most of what gets built employs the same operating logic of a past generation as an array of hospitality and real estate brands staple on wellness concepts and amenity programs and call it a lifestyle with different finishes.
We help our partners design for WellBeing across every touchpoint.
Brand
Strategy · Identity · Aesthetic
Creating a coherent and compelling world for targeted clientele.
Experience
Ritual · Programming · Space
Designing a proprietary experience that delivers upon the brand promise.
Storytelling
Channels · Community · Content
The collaborative content machine to attract, engage and retain clientele.
About Chris Unwin
FREEHAND'S FOUNDERRecognizing cultural shifts before they're named, and building what's needed to meet them.
Chris has spent two decades at the intersection of media, brand, and creative commerce. He started his career inside major media — launching a national consumer publication, then leading brand partnerships at MTV's Canadian operation and strategy across a portfolio of fifteen television networks. The years inside those companies taught him how culture, distribution, and commerce fit together at scale.
He left to found Free Agency in 2013, at a moment when the creator economy didn't yet have a name. The agency built a methodology that connected business objectives directly to storytellers whose work was already passionate, already culturally legible, already alive. It operated through 2020 as a long-term content partner to brands that defined the era. The methodology was unusual at the time. It is now most of how culture-forward brand work gets done.
Alongside Free Agency, he built The Creator Class — a community-powered media platform that reached 260,000 followers and 15 million global impressions across the first wave of the creator economy — and Free Space, a 6,500-square-foot creator incubator in Toronto that became a landmark for a generation of cultural practitioners. He produced A Kid from Somewhere, a feature documentary acquired by Red Bull Media House globally.
Chris moved to Mexico City in 2023 to build alongside the next wave he saw forming — the WellBeing economy, where hospitality, real estate, community, and ritual are converging.
Past Clients
CANON
MTV
FORD
SONY
MICROSOFT
RED BULL
Press Coverage
BOOOOOOOM
FAST COMPANY
MTV
DAZED
HIGH SNOBIETY
NOWNESS
DEZEEN
HYPEBEAST
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