“A one-year-old walks across the room. He goes three steps from the edge of the sofa to the coffee table, and he just lights up. He just completed an adventure,” CEO and founder of Picture In My Head Bert Nowell said, describing the imaginations and adventures of kids.
To describe her imagination, Nowell’s then-three-year-old daughter said, “I just have this picture in my head.” Four years later, Nowell is bringing that picture, and those of children everywhere, to life.
PIMH is an AI-powered custom apparel company, where doodles, photos and artwork are turned into a wearable pattern in seconds. After uploading an image to the PIMH mobile app, a three-dimensional pattern mockup is generated and can be printed onto a variety of different garments.
“Not everything is naturally going to make a good pattern,” Nowell said. “But abstract art, for the most part, does. So kids’ scribbles, for example, can. And then that pattern, it retains the authenticity.”
The idea for PIMH came about when Nowell and a friend were attending a concert in Los Angeles on what he called an “adult adventure.” An adult adventure, according to Nowell, is anything that allows you to explore your creative energy and bring happiness and joy, an “adventure inside yourself.”
“Now you take me, 39 years old at the time,” Nowell said. “I’ve been chewed up by the meat grinder of life, so I need a little bit more than walking three steps to get that same feeling, but the adventure of creating something meaningful and creative is second to none in this world.”
Inspired by his daughter’s words, Nowell wanted to create something that could capture that spark of imagination and delight and take it to the physical world.
Though the startup is based in North Carolina, Nowell said that all production of the fabrics are sourced from the textile and garments district of Los Angeles. By combining domestic production with the efficiency of generating patterns that would typically require expensive graphic designers, PIMH can deliver high-quality, fully-realized products to customers in as little as two weeks. They can also do it at a much lower price than comparable custom apparel companies.
The app has four modes to stylize uploaded patterns: Realistic I, Realistic II, Stylized and Wildcard. It also has a “bag” feature, through which users can make several designs and buy them all at once, simulating a real-life shopping experience. (Now seven years old, Nowell’s daughter Charlotte has used these features to pattern her art projects into everything from a sweat suit based off of a watercolor painting, to a T-shirt patterned after a vibrant pink dragon she drew.)
The products that PIMH produces are mainly aimed towards kids, but can appeal to adults too, Nowell said. For example, the Nowell family generated a sleeveless dress pattern based off of a painting made by Nowell’s grandmother, Elizabeth, in the 1930s. Proud parents are another group who might enjoy the PIMH process.
“A two-year-old making scribbles all of a sudden is a cool pattern on fabric that they could wear, and that’s in a lot of cases cool enough for their mom or dad [to wear],” Nowell said.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Picture in my Head, Inc.
Founder: Bert Nowell
Founded: 2026
Team size: 4
Location: Raleigh
Website: pictureinmyhead.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
The PIMH app is currently available on the Apple app store. At this stage, the startup is experimenting with ways to reach customers and refine their app user experience. One idea Nowell had was to reach out to schools—potentially channeling children’s art projects from school and turning them into something more long-lasting.
At the core of PIMH is a love for children’s ability to dream, imagine and above all, create.
“Kids, and our love of kids and the love of my family… without that this never even happens,” Nowell said of his business. “It’s a big influence.”
