Taking the morphological and cultural peculiarities of the “bird-shaped” image wine vessels of the Shang and Zhou periods as the object of study, the design characteristics of the bionic form of “reason” and the cultural meaning of “emotion” are investigated in order to explore the design ingenuity of the integration of emotion and reason in the bionic creations of the pre-Qin Dynasty and the inspiration of their creation paths to modern design. On the basis of the origin of the utensils, according to the pictures and data information of the bird-shaped wine vessels, the characteristics of the body structure and visual symbols in the bionic modeling of the wine vessels were studied from the perspective of design. The two main design elements analyzed are the integration form of bird-shape and wine vessel structure, and the relationship between the visual characteristics of birds and the aesthetic cultural connotation of wine vessels. The design path of bird-shaped vessels in Shang and Zhou Dynasties was summed up and used in the design context of modern animal-shaped wine vessels. Three transformation factors were proposed, including “upgrading of natural elements”, “integration of cultural context” and “design path of harmony of emotion and reason”, so as to perfect and construct the design inheritance method of modern animal-shaped wine vessels.