Back in January, I received an email query from a graphic designer in Switzerland. She had come across the above drawing that I had done of a Mongolian cashmere goat while doing a Google Image search and wondered if I would allow my “stunning sketch” to be used for hang tags on cashmere products that are to be sold in Switzerland’s largest department store. We quickly negotiated a rights and usage fee and I sent her an image to her specifications.

But I’ve learned how this kind of thing can go after working for fifteen years as a freelance graphic designer back in the 1970s and 1980s, so I haven’t announced it even though it’s pretty exciting. My fee was deposited in my Paypal account day before yesterday, so here is the design mockup that was emailed to me showing how my drawing will be used.

Of course I have no idea where the cashmere they are using originates, although the odds are that it is Mongolia, which produces the world’s highest quality, but no matter where it came from, a Mongol goat will be used to help sell it.

People do ask if artists ever sell anything off the internet and I have sold originals that way. But this is another aspect….designers looking to license images for specific uses. Fortunately my commercial illustration training and background gave me the knowledge I needed to professionally negotiate an arrangement that served both our needs. I got a nice fee for a single use of a drawing that I had already done and they got an image that serves their client. Without the internet there’s no way they would ever have found it or me.