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Over the last year, I've often said that AI-generated imagery isn't the threat to handmade illustration you might think it is. But sometimes it's easier to just point to a live example. And here's an entirely fabulous one, in the form of Kingdom & Sparrow's work for Welsh sparkling wine brand Mydflower.
The brief was textbook premium rebrand: elevate a country wine to compete in the sparkling market, and communicate its quality without losing its folkloric charm.
It's the kind of project in which some studios might reach for Midjourney, tweak some prompts about "mystical Welsh countryside", and call it strategic. Instead, Kingdom & Sparrow, an agency based in Falmouth, Cornwall, responded with lino-cut style illustrations of hares, birds and wildflowers; the sort of painstaking, traditional technique that takes actual skill and actual time.
To my mind, that makes good sense. Because in 2026, when you can generate a thousand variations of "folkloric wine label" before lunch, choosing to develop hand-drawn illustrations isn't just an aesthetic choice; it's a positioning statement. And for Mydflower, it's proving to be the right one.
Craft still mattersThe technical execution shows why craft still matters in the upper end of the market. Those lino-cut illustrations aren't just printed flat on the label; they're embossed onto a custom neck cuff, with a golden sun embossed centrally on the bottle label. The elderflower and raspberry variants each feature their respective botanicals surrounding that sun.
This is a design that understands the retail environment: that premium wines are bought as much by touch as sight. A hand reaches for a bottle, feels that tactile quality, and the brain makes an instant value judgment.
And this is precisely where the "AI can do anything" crowd tends to go quiet. Yes, you can generate images. But can you art direct embossing? Do you understand paper stocks, finishing techniques, and how light catches a debossed line? Kingdom & Sparrow clearly do, and it shows in work that could only exist through understanding physical materials.
Folklore meets premiumThe folklore angle itself deserves scrutiny. Welsh mythology is hardly unexplored territory; it's the kind of branding territory where things can tip into "themed restaurant" vibes if you're not careful. But here the studio navigates it with admirable restraint.
The illustrations are intricate without being overwrought, folkloric without being literal. Hares and wildflowers become elegant pattern elements rather than heavy-handed storytelling devices. The result feels premium rather than whimsical, which is precisely the needle Mydflower needed to thread.
What's interesting, meanwhile, from a strategic perspective, is how the design solves a fundamental brand tension. Mydflower makes sparkling wine from elderflowers and raspberries, infused with Welsh mountain spring water and Champagne yeast. It's simultaneously trying to be premium and alternative, traditional and distinctive.
Impressively, the visual identity manages to hold both ideas. The craft execution and embossing techniques signal quality and justify premium pricing, while the folk illustration style and nature motifs differentiate it from conventional sparkling wines.
Key takeawayFor creatives swept up in the AI debate, there's a broader lesson here. The question isn't whether algorithmic tools can generate adequate work (they can). It's whether "adequate" is where you want to position yourself or your clients.
Kingdom & Sparrow is effectively selling the opposite of efficiency here. They're selling the visible evidence of human time, skill and decision-making. And crucially, they're finding clients who are willing to pay for it.
This isn't Luddism; it's market positioning. In a category increasingly flooded with AI-generated content, hand-crafted work stands out not despite being slower and more expensive, but because of it. The economics of premium goods have always rewarded scarcity and visible craft. A design studio that can demonstrate both (and has a team trained in traditional image-making and typography) has a defensible market position.
The Mydflower project also highlights something the design press often misses: the importance of regional creative ecosystems. Falmouth isn't London, but its university produces graduates with particular skills, and studios like Kingdom & Sparrow are building practices around those capabilities. Food, drink and lifestyle brands suit this approach; they're often looking for authenticity and craft stories that align with their products.
Whether this scales is another question. Hand-drawn illustration is inherently labour-intensive. But for studios working in the premium sector, that's rather the point. You're not selling scalability. You're selling the thing that someone with a subscription and a decent prompt can't easily replicate.
Consequently, I believe that as creative automation becomes ubiquitous, the commercial value of demonstrable human craft will increase. Certainly, Kingdom & Sparrow's branding here suggests that some clients are actively seeking design that looks and feels handmade. The challenge for creatives is whether they have the skills to deliver it.
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