About Us
We make the plates
the field guides left out
Birds, botanicals, and a number of cats who were never meant to appear in a natural history illustration and turned up anyway.
Where this started
A shelf of old books
Somewhere in the 1940s, illustrators were paid to sit very still and render birds accurately. Muted ochre. Olive. A soft grey wash for the sky. Latin name underneath, set small.
Those plates are beautiful, and they are also extremely serious. Nobody in them is having any fun. Wild Hollow keeps the visual language of that era — the restrained palette, the careful composition, the label along the bottom — and quietly changes who gets to be the subject.
A chickadee is a legitimate subject for a field guide.
A black cat holding a martini is not.
We treat both with the same seriousness.
The result is a small collection that looks like it was pulled from a 1947 natural history volume, right up until you notice what's actually going on in the picture.
How we make it
Openly, so you can decide for yourself
Our artwork is created digitally, using AI image tools, in the style of mid-century gouache field guide plates.
We'd rather tell you that plainly than let you assume otherwise. Nothing here is painted on paper with a brush, and we don't describe it as such.
What that leaves is still a considerable amount of work, and it's the part we care about:
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Getting the reference right
Plumage, posture, the shape of a seedling tray, the way a cane rod leans against a stone. The natural history part is checked properly even when the subject is being ridiculous. A chickadee that doesn't look like a chickadee is just a grey bird.
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Holding the palette
Ochre, olive, oxblood, and a great deal of muted grey. No neon, no gradients that didn't exist in 1947. Most of our editing time goes into pulling colour back rather than adding it.
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Rejecting most of it
Far more images get made than get published. The ones that reach the shop are the ones where the composition holds, the anatomy is sound, and the joke lands without being explained.
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Writing the label
Common name, Latin name where the subject has earned one, and a line or two underneath. The cats have not earned a Latin name. They are aware of this.
The cast
Recurring subjects
Some are real animals rendered honestly. Some are cats who have arranged their afternoon to suit themselves. All of them get the same treatment, which is either the joke or the entire point, depending on your mood.
Entirely legitimate. Perched on the edge of a well-worn field guide, as if checking his own entry. Arrives before you've finished looking him up.
A black cat, one very good martini, and absolutely no plans. He is not misbehaving. He simply knows what he likes and has arranged his evening accordingly.
A cane rod propped against a stone, a creel in the grass, a minnow held crosswise. He caught it himself. He is not putting it down.
Sitting squarely in a tray of seedlings, entirely composed, having flattened every one of them. No apology is offered. None appears to be forthcoming.
A ginger tabby curled beside a small espresso, eyes half-closed. The morning has been handled. There is coffee. He is satisfied.
Yarrow, cornflower and wild carrot. The kind of small bouquet you gather without meaning to and press between the pages of something.
Nothing exists until you order it
Made to order, on purpose
We hold no stock. Not a single box of anything.
Every tee, tote, mug and print is made after the order comes in, at the production facility closest to your address, and sent directly to you.
This is slower than a warehouse — five to twelve business days rather than two — and we've decided we're fine with that. It means no pallet of unsold hoodies in a size nobody wanted. It means we can put a chickadee in the shop without first calculating how many chickadee enthusiasts exist in the continental United States. And it means a shorter trip from press to doorstep.
It also shapes how we handle things when they go wrong. We don't ask for returns, because a returned made-to-order item can't go to anyone else — it goes in a bin. Send us a photo instead and we'll replace it. The Returns & Replacements page explains exactly how, and Shipping & Delivery covers the timings.
Who we are
Smaller than you're imagining
Wild Hollow is a small team. We make the images, write the labels, and answer the emails — frequently the same person doing all three in one afternoon. There is no call centre. When you write to us, someone who actually chose the colour of that sky reads it.
We'd rather make a hundred people genuinely delighted than a hundred thousand people mildly aware, which is a slower way to build a shop but a considerably better way to enjoy running one.
Say hello
Questions about an order, a request for a subject you'd like to see, or a photograph of your own cat behaving unforgivably — all welcome. We read every email and normally reply within one to two business days.
info@wildhollowco.comIf it's about an existing order, pop the order number in the subject line.