Hub – Customizable Cosmetics Line

A closer look at Hub, designed by Clichê, a Brazil-based design studio, through the lens of this curator’s insight.

What immediately strikes me about this design is that it treats cosmetics like a system. Not a hero product, not a lineup — a system. And that distinction matters. The packaging behaves like building blocks: each piece feels made to be stacked, swapped, collected. The modularity isn’t tucked away as some clever engineering secret. It’s the whole point. The segmentation lines, the layered construction — all of it is right there on the surface, turning customization from a hidden benefit into the actual visual language of the thing.

The bold striping is what I keep coming back to. Those stripes aren’t decoration. They’re doing real work — acting as identifiers, letting you distinguish functions or variants at a glance. It’s borrowing logic from wayfinding design, transit maps, that kind of thinking. You almost never see that in beauty. The result is an experience that feels intuitive without needing to lean on labels or fine print.

The color palette walks a line I find genuinely difficult to pull off. It’s playful, almost toy-like, but the finish and proportions save it from tipping into something childish. It ends up feeling premium and approachable at the same time — which, honestly, is exactly where cosmetics brands want to be and rarely land. The chunky forms and rounded edges add something tactile to that. These feel good to hold. There’s a quiet ritual in clicking the pieces together that I think people will notice without quite being able to name it.

Stacked, the caps and bases create a kind of rhythm — alternating bands and blocks that build into something almost totemic. An everyday product that earns its place on a shelf. That’s harder than it sounds.

The branding choice is confident in the best way: the “HUB” mark stays small and unobtrusive, letting the packaging system carry the identity. The logo isn’t the brand here. The behavior is. That’s a decision most studios don’t have the restraint to make.