Recently, I watched this GQ video
where Justin Bieber gave an inside look at the motorhome
he spent the height of the pandemic in.
“GQ, thank you so much for coming to check out my tour bus.”
It's got a sauna, some questionable art
and more closet space than a New York City apartment.
It turns out this mammoth RV is custom-made
and is estimated to cost close to $2 million.
It's hard to imagine that this penthouse on wheels
shares anything in common with this...
an entry level RV that costs $30,000...
roughly the same as a Honda Accord.
Or even this, a vintage Fleetwood Bounder from 2001.
But look at these RVs together
and you might notice something they do share.
It's the swooshes and swoops and they are everywhere.
A few years ago, I moved from New York City...
to the Berkshires.
Which is right here in western Massachusetts.
I went from the land of people and public transit...
to the land of cows and campers.
Because of that
I've been thinking about these ubiquitous swoops a lot...
wondering why they've lasted so long
and if they are here to stay.
To try and finally get answers to this question...
I'm going to Elkhart, Indiana:
The RV capital of the world.
The amount of RVs produced here
amounts to about 80% of global RV production.
Oh, there's an RV.
There's manufacturers.
There's dealers. There's campgrounds.
There's the RV History Museum, which is where I'm going.
You heard that right.
RVs are such a part of Elkhart’s DNA
that they have a museum and Hall of Fame dedicated to them.
[laughing] I'm so excited.
Yeah.
I am at the RV Museum Library.
Behind me are hundreds, if not thousands of catalogs
going back to like the 1950s and beyond.
That's so cool.
It seems no matter the decade, RVs had multicolor paid jobs
but for a long time they were straight lines.
That is just so many straight lines.
I think a big driving factor in a lot of that...
is technology.
Back in the 60s and 70s, everything was straight.
Well, everything was straight
because they had tape and they had their hands.
That's Ryan Loucks.
He designs custom exterior graphics for Newell
a high end motorhome maker.
They’re in the same luxury category of the company
that made Justin Bieber's bus.
We'll get to how Ryan designs these in a second.
But first, you have the computer come on the scene...
and the computer can cut these perfect stripes
and curves for you.
And so, you know, you kind of
have the first layer of printed graphics
that were cut and applied.
Next, evolution is a layer of depth and detail
that just wasn't possible before.
This is a 1986 Fleetwood Bounder.
You might recognize it as the RV from Breaking Bad.
Unfortunately, these stripes didn't last long.
By the new millennium
as graphic designers got more and more adventurous with digital tools...
straight lines were out and the swooshes and swoops were in.
This is what the Fleetwood Bounder looks like today.
Okay, so what exactly...
am I defining as swoosh and swoop?
Look at this. Okay.
This is a perfect example.
Okay, let me get closer.
This.
Let's see.
That is a swoosh.
That is a swoop.
Swoosh.
Swoop.
Don't fight me on that, okay?
Before I got to Elkhart
I chatted with Ryan about his custom design process.
So while I clean up these books and put them away...
you get to watch that.
Cut to the interview.
Generally speaking, when you're doing paint design
you want your pin color to go first.
On a coach like this,
the whole thing would be sprayed white...
and then they'd go through and lay their pinstripe
this kind of silvery or white edges to the shapes.
They pull those all by hand.
And that gives you kind of the roadmap
for everything else that happens.
In Newell's process...
they're going to go to the next darkest color
starting with the lightest and working towards dark
till they get to the end
which is usually the posting or background pattern.
And ghosting is—there's kind of a color in the background.
And then we add a layer of clear, translucent pearl
similar to what's used in like women's nail polish as a topcoat.
So at see through, you can see the color behind it
but adds some sparkle
and some, you know, some interest there.
During this time they might also add drop shadows
which makes the swoops and swirls look almost three-dimensional.
Which is a whole art form in and of itself.
There's no mechanical way to add drop shadows.
That is somebody with a paint gun
almost like that guy with the pinstripe going
“I have to follow this curve perfectly...
with this black paint and not mess it up.”
These guys are basically artists...
whether they realize it about themselves or not.
I just did a crazy turnaround
because I just saw the coolest looking RV.
Let me show you.
Isn't that so cool?
That's awesome.
When I first wrote up this pitch
I described the swooshes as mind boggling...
atrocious and dated.
And I found a like-minded band of anti-swooshers online
that made me feel like I was on the right side of this debate.
But when I came across Ryan's work, it was the first time
where I genuinely appreciated the complexity and the detail.
And let's be honest, the fully maximalist approach
to graphic design that these swooshes provide.
But of course, Newell’s cost $2 million
and RVs like these with fully custom
and very personal paint jobs
make up a tiny fraction of the 11.2 million
that Americans own today.
Instead of multiple painters
spending 195 hours on one coach like Ryan's team does...
most new owners will get an RV with an automotive-grade vinyl
that looks much more two-dimensional.
And today, there's a good chance that that new RV owner
is going to be a lot younger
than when the swoops first took over.
In the last 3 years, the average age of a first time buyer
went from 41 to 32.
In large part because of the pandemic
when RV production and sales hit record highs.
Just as fashion comes around
just as home design comes around
so does the RV industry.
And we are always looking to stay on trend...
but also design for the masses.
That's Ashley Bontrager.
She co-founded Ember RVs in 2021.
I personally like a minimalistic approach to design.
I want it to be linear.
We wanted to enhance the design
of our units, like the shapes and the windows.
You know, one of the things we said is we want to make them appear larger.
So we worked—on our designer worked on black graphics
that just extend the length of the window
to make them appear larger from afar.
Ember makes RVs that are part of a growing category
called overlanders.
They're designed to go off-road and off-grid.
Looking at our RVs across this category
you start to notice that there's no swoops.
Though some do look like straight up tanks.
And it turns out a less swoopy look
has been percolating amongst other RV designs the last few years.
Ultimately, I think you will see a design trend...
going more toward this
more minimal, linear graphics in the RV space.
For every swoopy RV I saw while driving around Elkhart
I also saw edgier designs with names like Raptor and Avenger.
Even the iconic Bounder
has straightened up their lines for 2024.
Perhaps we're moving from the era of swoops to daggers.
I'll let you decide if that's a good thing.
So I have some people that say “I love the swoops and swirls.”
“They've always been there.”
“It makes me feel like home.”
“Give me tradition.”
But for every person that says that
you've got somebody that says
“I am so sick of the swoops and swirls.”
“Let's do something different.”