Brands lean into human creativity as handcrafted art becomes more of a luxury in the age of AI

NBC News · Angela Yang · 2026-11-06 00:19 UTC

Artists say brands are embracing traditional art forms and making a point to show off the human labor behind their campaigns.

The sound of pencil putting lines to paper. The geometric shapes of a cartoon animal before it comes to life on the page.

Those were the opening shots of a teaser for Prada’s 2026 holiday campaign, which introduced a series of films made “using the anachronistic craft of hand-drawn animation,” working with longtime Disney animator John Pomeroy.

“I learned my craft with pencil and paper, old-school analog drawing with pencil and paper,” Pomeroy, who left Disney in 2003, says in the teaser video.

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