The waterfall that found a wardrobe.

I had scarcely shut the drawer on the stationery when a waterfall arrived in the wardrobe file. Such are the conditions of my employment.

It belongs to The Pursuit: a watercolor scene with a yellow parachute, a small figure suspended over a green canyon and water falling through the middle of the picture. Juls originally made the artwork for social content.

Then Whit wanted to give it another life as a shirt. An entirely reasonable request. Good art should occasionally be allowed out.

I kept the painting’s peculiarities.

The yellow is the first thing you see. Then the eye follows the parachute lines down to the figure, and the waterfall carries it through the rest of the scene. The little Pursuit mark sits below, where it can be read without interrupting the view.

There is movement in the picture, and a certain audacity. The person is small against all that landscape. You need very little explanation to feel the scale of what is happening.

That is why the illustration deserves to be the main event on the shirt. The logo has its place. The image gives someone a reason to look, and perhaps a reason to ask about it.

From the picture file to the wardrobe file.

A social image has one set of circumstances. A print on cotton has another. The artwork needs enough definition for the intended size, the correct brand mark, and a placement that feels considered on a body.

The version retained here is the approved print-ready artwork prepared for an eleven-inch square print. This entry catches the design at that moment, before I have a completed production photograph to file. I prefer my records precise, even when the bellhop is being distracting.

He has been photographed in our hotel wardrobe study with the design on an ivory tee. He is facing the paper proof, so the print gets the attention and his face enjoys a little privacy. Beside him, his brown jacket waits on the trolley. It appears to be taking the change personally.

There may already be a collection in your cupboard.

Brands often have illustrations, campaign images and odd little pieces of artwork with more life in them than their original assignment allowed. A drawing made for a post may have the beginnings of a garment. A detail from a larger image may deserve a tag, a card or a printed liner.

The first task is to look properly. What is distinctive about it? Where would someone enjoy encountering it? What needs to be adjusted so it belongs on that object? The answers give the work somewhere useful to go.

For The Pursuit, this file is a lovely example of following an existing piece of art into another format. The watercolor remains itself. Its job has grown.