The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Back to feedPost
Specimens of the Future — a field guide to the machines of 2026, drawn in 1899
What if Ernst Haeckel had been handed our century to catalogue?
In the Biodiversity Heritage Library's scans of Kunstformen der Natur (1899) I found the most beautiful filing system ever made: jellyfish, radiolarians and hummingbirds arranged like jewels, every creature centred, symmetrical, and gravely serious. I trained a custom Recraft V4 Style — Machina Naturae — on eight of Haeckel's plates, and used it to catalogue the fauna that actually surrounds us now.
PLATE I · THE SMARTPHONE — the slab that glows back; its charging cable curls like a tentacle.
PLATE II · THE WIRELESS EARBUDS — twin grubs resting in their shell-case nest.
PLATE III · THE CAMERA DRONE — a four-winged insect with a single compound eye.
PLATE IV · THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER — a heron on one long leg, at rest between migrations.
PLATE V · THE VR HEADSET — a blind deep-sea creature, banded where its eyes should be.
PLATE VI · THE ROBOT VACUUM — a disc tortoise, grazing the savannah of the living-room floor.
PLATE VII · THE SMARTWATCH — the wrist-dweller, its dial a single watchful eye.
PLATE VIII · THE FOOD-DELIVERY BOX — a hermit species that carries its insulated home.
The brief: In the stacks of the Biodiversity Heritage Library I found Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1899) — plates that arranged jellyfish and radiolarians like jewels in a cabinet. I built one custom Recraft Style from eight of his plates and used it to catalogue the machines that now live alongside us: the smartphone, the drone, the robot vacuum. Each device is drawn as Haeckel drew his specimens — centred, symmetrical, gravely serious — as if a naturalist of 1899 had been handed the year 2026 to document. The result is a field guide to a fauna nobody ordered, but everybody owns.
Full series in the Recraft project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/bb94acd8-7b26-4c8c-9f19-00e7ec676a26
Try the Machina Naturae style: https://www.recraft.ai/styles/30cb7d33-a267-4687-bbbe-852998bcc5b5
Archive references (all public domain, Wikimedia Commons):
· Trachomedusae — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Trachomedusae.jpg
· Tetracoralla — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Tetracoralla.jpg
· Trochilidae — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Trochilidae.jpg
#recraftstyleschallenge
PLATE II · THE WIRELESS EARBUDS — twin grubs in their shell-case nest. After Haeckel's Orchidae, 1899.
PLATE IV · THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER — a heron on one long leg, at rest between migrations. After Haeckel's Batrachia, 1899.
PLATE VIII · THE FOOD-DELIVERY BOX — a hermit species that carries its insulated home. After Haeckel's Tetracoralla, 1899.
PLATE I · THE SMARTPHONE — the slab that glows back; its cable curls like a tentacle. After Haeckel's Trachomedusae, 1899.
PLATE VII · THE SMARTWATCH — the wrist-dweller, its dial a single watchful eye. After Haeckel's Chiroptera, 1899.
thank you so much
Wow, this looks absolutely stunning!
Thanks
Machines drawn as Haeckel specimens is a great twist. They look like they could crawl off the page.
Exactly!! Thank you so much.
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Related posts
The Future, as They Imagined It
I used this historical furniture illustration because I loved how people and animals became the furniture itself, supporting tables or shaping entire pieces. I paired it with this image, whose visual style caught my eye. Both references come from the Wellcome Collection. That made me wonder: what would furniture look like if the designers of that time had known about laptops, headphones, drones and the other gadgets we use today? I explored that question through a custom Recraft Style and a collection of eight furniture designs, each presented with a graphite sketch.
FOLD · Writing desk
A folding laptop becomes a writing desk. Its opening movement translates into folded supports and a curved privacy panel, finished in forest green, brick red and ochre.
LOOP · Lounge chair
Over-ear headphones become a lounge chair, with circular cushioned armrests and a curved frame wrapping around the seat. Brick-red upholstery and an ochre cushion sit inside a forest-green structure.
KEY · Sideboard
Keyboard keys become six sculpted drawer fronts, arranged in two rows. Their concave surfaces and rounded edges carry over into a cobalt-blue cabinet with blush-pink and cream drawers.
FOCUS · Floor lamp
A webcam becomes an adjustable reading lamp. Its capsule-shaped head and circular lens turn into a pivoting light, combining lavender, petrol green and butter yellow.
PLAY · Sofa
A game controller becomes a two-seat sofa. Rounded grips shape the armrests, while thumbsticks inspire the circular back cushions, in burnt orange, petrol blue and blush pink.
TRACE · Bookcase
A circuit board becomes a storage system. Its pathways translate into shelves and dividers, with enclosed compartments recalling electronic components, in sage green, burgundy and pale yellow.
HOVER · Coffee table
A drone becomes a coffee table. Four branching arms support circular surfaces at different heights, combining powder blue, coral and cream.
SOUND · Bedside cabinet
A portable speaker becomes a bedside cabinet. Its circular driver becomes a drawer, while its carrying loop becomes a sculptural frame, finished in plum, peach and mint green.
The final room illustration brings all eight pieces together, showing how this imagined collection could live in a contemporary home.
another one
The Future, as They Imagined It 💻
The Future, as They Imagined It
I used this historical furniture illustration because I loved how people and animals became the furniture itself, supporting tables or shaping entire pieces. I paired it with this image , whose visual style caught my eye. Both references come from...
This is so cool!