At Wooden Balls Co. — and at Farwinger, the workshop behind it — every piece of content you see across this site begins with people. The products are designed, drawn, costed and turned by human hands.
In keeping with emerging laws and expectations around the responsible use of artificial intelligence, we want to be open about how we work. We use AI tools as part of our process — for drafting and tidying words, for research, for design studies, for preparing images, and in the operation of our commercial correspondence. They help us present work we have already conceived and specified. They support the workshop; they do not replace it, and they have never touched a chisel.
This page sets out, in one place, exactly where they are used.
1. Our photographs, and our drawings
Most of the imagery on this site is exactly what it looks like: real photographs of real work that has come off our lathe, in our workshop.
There is one exception, and we would rather explain it than bury it. When we introduce a new pattern — a piece we have designed, drawn to a measured specification and priced, but not yet turned for the first time — we show a computer-generated visualisation of it. It is generated from the same dimensioned drawing we will turn to: the same profile, the same timber, the same sizes quoted on the page. We do this so we can show you a new design honestly and let you tell us whether you want it, rather than filling the workshop with speculative stock nobody asked for.
Where an image is a visualisation rather than a photograph, the piece is made to order to that specification, and we replace the visualisation with real photographs as soon as the first one is turned. We do not use generated imagery to pass off an item as photographed when it has not been. If you would like to see a real photograph before you commit to anything, ask us — we will tell you plainly whether one exists yet, and send it if it does.
Because every piece is turned by hand from solid timber, grain, figure and colour vary from one to the next. No photograph or visualisation, however careful, shows you the exact piece you will receive — that is the nature of real wood, and it is rather the point of it.
Portraits used to identify our commercial functions are also computer-generated. Section 4 explains why.
2. Words and research
We use AI tools to help draft and tidy product descriptions, guidance and answers to common questions, and to help us research materials, sizes and standards.
Prices, dimensions, weights and lead times come from our own measured records, not from a language model. Quotations are costed to a fixed method from those records. Any quotation at or above £10,000 is additionally reviewed and signed off by a director before it is issued to you.
3. Correspondence
Our commercial correspondence is operated with automated assistance throughout, and a proportion of it is sent automatically.
Routine correspondence — order acknowledgements, dispatch and delivery updates, requests for quotation to suppliers, payment reminders and follow-ups — is generated and sent by a scheduled process, to a schedule, without a person reading it first. Correspondence about anything that is not routine is reviewed before it goes.
Every message we send carries a footer identifying the company, its registered office, and the automated basis on which the correspondence is prepared. If at any point you would prefer to deal with a person directly, say so in a reply and we will arrange it.
4. Our commercial functions, and the names on our correspondence
Farwinger Limited is a small company. The workshop is people; the timber is real; the lathe is ours. Our commercial functions — quotations, procurement, product sourcing, accounts administration and customer support — are operated by automated systems, each under an assigned working name.
Those working names are the ones you will see in our correspondence and on our team page: Joel Marsh (Commercial Projects), Daniel Hartley (Procurement), Nadia Sinclair (Product Sourcing), Michelle Doyle (Accounts Administration) and Mara Mendoza (Customer Support). We should be clear about what they are and are not. They are names assigned to functions, not employees of the company. They do not correspond to individual people, and the portraits shown with them are computer-generated — the faces are not photographs of anyone. We give each function a name and a face because it is easier to deal with a named point of contact than with a mailbox, and because it tells you which part of the business you are talking to.
Michael Farwinger is the name under which the business presents itself publicly, and the name on our published telephone number and social accounts. It is a house name — the brand's own — and not an officer of the company: Farwinger Limited was founded by Friedemann Wocke, who is a director of it.
Friedemann Wocke is a real person. He founded Farwinger Limited and is a director of it — the register at Companies House, company number 16047814, says so. His is the only entry on our team page that is a natural person. The portrait shown with it is a studio likeness of him, rendered by computer from photographs taken of him; the rest are computer-generated and are not photographs of anyone.
None of this changes who is responsible to you. Farwinger Limited is the contracting party for everything sold through this site and its checkout, and the company is bound by what is written and sent in its name, whichever working name appears on it. A commitment made to you in our correspondence is the company's commitment.
5. Decisions
No decision that affects your legal position is taken by an automated system on its own. Whether to accept a return, issue a refund, uphold or refuse a warranty claim, offer or withdraw credit terms, or decline an order is decided by a person at Farwinger. If you ever believe an outcome has been reached about you without a person considering it, write to us at the address below and we will review it ourselves and tell you the result.
How we handle the personal information in your enquiries and orders — including the service providers who process it on our behalf and where they are located — is set out separately in our privacy policy.
6. Why one page instead of a label on everything
Rather than sprinkling notices about AI assistance across every page and every image, we have chosen to explain our practices clearly, in one place, for anyone who wishes to understand how we work. We think that is more useful and more honest than a badge that tells you nothing about what actually happened.
Using this website is a choice. By browsing, interacting with, or purchasing from this site, you acknowledge the practices described in this policy and in our other site policies. This applies to all visitors, in every country and region, regardless of where you access the site from. If you do not agree with these practices, you are free to discontinue use of the site.
We may update this policy from time to time as technology and applicable laws continue to evolve. We encourage you to review it periodically. Nothing here affects your statutory rights, our returns policy, or your right to a product that matches its description.