Rubberhose Design is Having a Moment. It’s Part of a Cultural, Algorithmic Flattening

A retro design aesthetic, known as “rubberhose”, is having a moment -- but branding experts like Eugene Healey warn it’s yet another example of algorithms acting as cultural compressors and homogenisers. That results in a style or trend becoming saturated, because “it doesn't feel like there's really time for anything to become new before it becomes normative.”

Rubberhose style is characterised by characters with flexible, "rubber hose" -- like limbs and simple shapes. They might have pie-cut eyes and wear bold expressions. Think Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye.

“A lot of it goes back to classic 1950s advertising and branding, where you had a lot of mascots,” Matt Taylor, head of business development and original content at animation studio Mighty Nice, told LBB.

“Then the fact that you can make a little animated loop means people make social content -- they'll make burgers or chips or milkshakes doing a little walk cycle. The walk cycle is the key to animation. I think it's just having its time. Also the fact that social content is making people want to have short looping things is just bringing those two things together, magically.”

Nostalgia combined with modern technology and a constant demand to feed an algorithm has led to the ubiquity of the style, brand strategy consultant Eugene Healey said. After all, as he told LBB, “All we seem to have now is what we can mine from the archives and from the past.

“Algorithms love making things famous. Anyone who tells you they understand how the TikTok algorithm operates, even if they work at TikTok, is lying to you. They built a God in a box, and now the algorithm is like this indifferent God that is constantly looking for things in niches that it can blow up to the masses.”

Algorithms don’t want to keep niche things niche. Rather they want to make everything as famous as possible, he said. As a result, “What you have is effectively a culture that is algorithmic in nature, and algorithmically flattened. Anything that can theoretically resonate for one person, the algorithm wants to make resonate for everyone.

“So we have a culture in which, effectively, trends and trend cycles happen faster and faster and faster. That's why it feels like everything's reached a saturation point, because it doesn't feel like there's really time for anything to become new before it becomes normative.”

The association of rubberhose with 20th century entertainment meant a quick way for brands to signal familiarity and approachability, explained Sarah Udovenya, strategist at FutureBrand. As modern-day brands look to establish connections with customers using nostalgia, they are naturally turning to nostalgic design choices.

“It does hark back to a simpler time, maybe a more naive time, maybe a time that is a little more family-friendly,” she said.

“If we think about what's happening today, culturally and socially, the world around us is really volatile. Branding, communication, advertising is full of nuance. There is that sense of death by cancellation for a lot of brands. Having that shortcut to familiarity and simplicity, it’s a really easy shortcut for brands to then start building trust in a way that their consumers understand.”

Her colleague Sam Hughes, FutureBrand’s brand experience and innovation director, agreed, but warned stylistic shortcuts risk becoming creative crutches. When a style is overused, he said, it “starts to become a signifier for how a brand shows up in the world.”

“When you put on a brand hat, it does really start to make you wonder about that larger homogenising of design, and what we actually come to expect from design and the commodification of how design is being used these days.

“Distinction becomes much, much more important. Because it does become a case where if everyone's using the same rubberhose illustrations, it becomes simple and generic -- it's not bad, it's not good, it's just okay. It doesn't actually stand out from anything anymore.”

Standing out in a sea of animated sameness is a risk that is particularly acute in today’s world, as AI image generators latch onto similar styles and produce overly-polished work.

That’s become fodder for inspiration at Mighty Nice. “We've built a stop motion studio here, as our response to AI to go completely the other way. I think people love things that feel handmade right now.

“As AI makes things more perfect, there will be more people looking for imperfections. I don't know where that's going to leave little trotting donuts and milkshakes -- they might need to get weirder or more off-model.”

Eugene added cultural framing is key -- styles people perceive as “timeless” are a product of their timing and cultural context, he said.

“Timelessness is shaped by the values and the conversations that our society is having right now. What we consider timeless is a function of something that is time-bound.

“Our version of timelessness right now is a very WASPy, classic, conservative, ornate design. Look at how the luxury logos have evolved. We went through the sans-serification of everything in the 2010s, and now we've gone back to the opposite. Everyone is trying to communicate history, even brands that don't have a history.

“What gets something clarified as timeless changes depending on the cultural context. Right now, the cultural imperative is the conservative shift towards trying to reassert the importance of history and mythology, and in particular, white mythology. So what we're getting is this very ornate, old European take -- that's what's classified as timeless and classic now.”

So where does this leave the rubberhose style? Sarah wondered “if we will get to the point where it becomes a bit of a category code for down-to-earthness, or a neighbourhood brand, something that feels really personable. It could become more of a marketing lever, or more of a branding lever or a tactic, rather than a world building sort of exercise.

“If it makes sense for the brand to lean into that sort of personality, why not? But if we're starting to see brands chase after those styles or designs because it's trending or because they think that it might get them different audiences, we would always encourage brands to think about why they're doing something. Does that experience make sense for their brand?”

Sam encouraged creatives and clients to ask whether there are other levers to play with to achieve distinctiveness.

“Maybe that does mean that they need to be working a lot harder on their language or the experiences that they're creating, if that's the visual codes that they're going to go with. Where are the other opportunities to actually make sure that you're still memorable? Otherwise, you’re just another jug with arms.”