‘The way the world is, something daft is appealing’ – why everything from pizzas to podcasts has a cartoon character on it

So-called rubber hose style is putting a smile on everyday products, even as some designers plead that it’s time to ‘stop putting arms and legs on everything’. What’s behind the ubiquity of this wholesome branding? A bagel embodied as a human, with unexpected little arms and a sweet face. A sandwich giving the peace sign. A leather jacket-wearing fish brandishing a spatula. A chess board on the march. A rugby ball making a dash for it. A smiling pizza, tongue dangling, clambering from a box. Perhaps you have seen such a character. Chiefly in the branding – and merch – of an independent pizza place or sandwich shop, in a natural wine bar or brew pub. Though its loose limbs now stretch far and wide; to podcasts, internet talk shows and even global fashion labels. It’s often accompanied by text in a graffiti-like bubble font, or one Karl Toomey, a Dublin-based designer, strategist and lecturer, identifies as the 1970s-tinged Hobo font, in washed-out orange, red, purple, green or blue. It might scream of businesses developed in the late 2010s or early 2020s, but it’s a graphic design/illustration style that largely dates from a 1920s and 30s animation technique known as