Rebellious by Design | Championing the power of human craft in a digital age

Lisa Montague, CEO of Sanderson Design Group

In the modern business landscape, we often hear the future framed as a binary choice: the cold precision of the algorithm or the soulful touch of the human hand. But from where we stand at Sanderson Design Group, that is a false dichotomy and a missed opportunity.

Running a successful business requires an artful balance of fostering innovation and lateral thinking alongside celebrating our artistic heritage. We are leaning into artificial intelligence and advanced technology because they are the engines of efficiency and productivity. To ignore the leap forward that technology offers wouldn’t just be traditionalism; it would be a failure to provide our teams and our brands with the best tools available to thrive.

However, efficiency is not the soul of our business. Underpinned by our Live Beautiful strategy, preserving heritage and craftsmanship for future generations, the foundation of everything we do lies in the narrative of human intention. Craft isn’t a museum relic to be preserved in amber; it is an active, essential companion to technology, a creative response to the world around us, and a springboard for a new generation to challenge how we live.

Getting this relationship right is more than a strategic pillar. It’s about ensuring that while our processes are faster, the end result remains undeniably, beautifully crafted design that feeds the soul.

From Arts & Crafts to today: Coining the new movement

When William Morris defined the three epochs of “art workmanship” in his 1888 article, The Revival of Handicraft, he looked backwards to the medieval guild and forward through the smog of the Victorian industrial age. He was a rebel fighting the soulless, ultra-processed excess of his time, famously repulsed by the mechanical commodities of the 1851 Great Exhibition.

We shouldn’t presume exactly what Morris would think today, but we are confident that he was the original design rebel. Were he alive now, we believe he wouldn’t be hiding in the past. We surmise that he would lead the charge into the future, immersing himself in British design and passionately advocating for human creativity and spirit.

Today, we find ourselves at the threshold of the fourth epoch. The modern threat to craft lies in the erosion of human judgment, what creative strategist Andy Harvey calls “ultra-processed creativity” or “workslop”. The environmental and existential toll of automated imagination is staggering, with data centres threatening our natural ecosystems.

However, we are optimistic. Just as Morris sparked the Arts & Crafts movement to resist the mechanical shortcuts and shallowness of the 19th century, today we coin a new movement for the 21st: Rebellious by Design.

Craft as a future companion to technology

Rebellious by Design does not reject the digital frontier; it frames craft as the essential partner to technology. Craft is an act of thinking, gesture, and judgment. As May Morris recalled of her father’s Willow Boughs design, it began with a walk by a stream, a keen observation of leaf forms, and a subjective emotional response.

This physical connection to making remains the heartbeat of our creative process. In the historic Voysey House studio in Chiswick, a building that stands proudly as the original Sanderson wallpaper factory, our designers continue the tactile traditions of hand drawing and painting designs. They delve deep into our extensive archive to revive, renew, and rework historic patterns, motifs, and colourways for a contemporary audience.

We use technology not to replace the artist, but to span the gap between our heritage and a faster-moving world. AI can handle logistics and data, but it cannot create meaning. It cannot care. We choose the walk by the stream over the shortcut of the prompt, using advanced tools to amplify, rather than flatten, the thousands of myriad decisions that constitute a soul at work.

Championing the future of craft

To champion the future of craft, we must actively invest in the ecosystem that sustains it. As Dr James Fox brilliantly chronicles in Craftland, an impassioned and inspiring account of the extraordinary men and women still doing traditional artisanal work in the face of massive technological industrialisation, British making is a vital, living narrative rather than a historical footnote. At Sanderson Design Group, our commitment to this future is cemented through deep, active relationships with the cornerstones of British making, ensuring that traditional skills evolve to find relevance in modern contexts. This narrative flows from the patterns created in our studios to the meticulous craft of wallpaper making and fabric printing. These are brought to life in our British factories, Standfast & Barracks and Anstey, where designs are realised through both traditional and digital printing methods.

Our collaboration with The King’s Foundation exemplifies this commitment to heritage and education. Through projects like the Highgrove by Sanderson collection, we translate the beauty of the natural world and royal gardens into exquisite textiles, directly supporting the Foundation's educational charities. At Dumfries House in Scotland, The King’s Foundation’s visionary approach to craft education comes to life. Here, intensive training initiatives in traditional building skills, high-level textiles, and heritage carving provide young artisans with employment opportunities and preserve endangered skills that are vital to the future of British design.

This philosophy extends across our wider network of partners, most notably through our formal partnership programme with the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST), which directly supports the training and visibility of world-class artisans, bridging the gap between traditional mastery and contemporary style. We also value the great work of the Crafts Council and Cockpit Arts in championing the broader maker community. Furthermore, our relationships with creative incubators like Grandey’s Place ensure that independent makers receive the vital studio space, business mentorship, and global platforms they need to build sustainable, thriving careers.

Feeding the Soul: The next generation of makers

The true vitality of Rebellious by Design lies in the younger generations discovering the joys, frustrations, and passions of making. In a world saturated by screens, the act of physical creation is a radical, liberating act. Craft, design, art, and literature are not luxuries; they are fundamental requirements to feed the human soul.

By engaging young people in the tactile joy of creation, we aren’t just protecting heritage but are equipping a new generation with the tools to challenge the way we live and reshape our collective future.

A future that is human in its design

In this fourth epoch, we can use the legacy of Sanderson Design Group and the words of William Morris as pricks of conscience. Morris himself struggled with the tensions between industry and craft; he was an imperfect guide for a complicated time, which makes him all the more relevant today.

We may not have been given a vote on the advent of this technology, but we have agency over what we do next. The Arts & Crafts movement was a resistance to the mechanical coldness of the Victorian age. Today, we must redefine craft for our own era. We choose to make things because the act of making reminds us of our humanity, rather than seeking the most efficient path.

Our task now is to see how much we can automate where appropriate, without losing human creativity. We will always choose the walk by the stream over the shortcut of the prompt. But we must remember that Morris never objected to strolling over a bridge, provided it was well-built and led somewhere worth going. We use technology not to replace the artist, but to span the gap between our heritage and a faster-moving world, ensuring that when we reach the other side, our humanity remains intact.

Ultimately, we do not want this to stand as a solitary perspective, but rather as the catalyst for a much wider narrative. Our goal is to actively promote thought and dialogue around the soft power of British design, our collective creative responses to the digital era, and how we can achieve a perfect harmony between investing in technology and valuing the human hand. To truly understand where British making is headed, we want to hear from the creators, thinkers, and collectors who appreciate the value of the human-made.

We invite you to share your perspective with us and join this conversation. What does craft truly mean to you in a world dominated by screens, and how do you personally perceive the value of the human hand versus the precision of the algorithm? When you look at the design landscape today, how do you see our creative industries successfully responding to the digital age? We are eager to know what you appreciate most about how we design and make in the UK, who your own favourite makers are, and how we can best champion them.

Finally, do you agree on the essential need for balance between technological efficiency and physical mastery, and where do you believe that line should be drawn? Please let us know your thoughts, join the discussion, and help us shape the narrative for this next creative epoch.