What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker

Damon Young is an award-winning writer, critic, humorist, satirist, and editor-in-chief of Very Smart Brothas. He's also my cousin and one of my best friends whom I've worked with on several different occasions before, including: the aforementioned VSB, 1839 Mag, and his and VSB co-founder Panama Jackson's first book Your Degrees Won't Keep You Warm at Night.

Because I've designed the vast majority of websites, platforms, and published works that Damon has ever spearheaded or been a part of, I hoped that I was a shoo-in to design his first memoir as well: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (Ecco/Harper Collins). However, I was humbled very quickly when I learned that I was actually not in the running to submit mockups for the jacket design despite Damon tossing my name into the hat. It was actually my brilliant friend Frank William Miller Jr, Harper Collins' first choice designer, who insisted they put me in the running. I'm forever grateful to Frank for advocating for me and to Sara Wood, HC's Associate Art Director, for extending the opportunity to submit mockups and guiding my creative process.

Designing a book for one of the world's largest publishing companies—a highly anticipated memoir, at that (several celebrities, including Questlove and Ava Duvernay, blurbed Damon's book proposal)—was not something I took lightly. I submitted approximately thirty mockups in four rounds (I've included some of the earlier rejected designs below) for feedback and approval. As is often the case, I knew the design that reigned supreme was most likely the one as soon as I'd completed it. The bright colorway, the bold typography, and my perceived timelessness of the eventual cover were very apparent to me before I'd even submitted the round to Harper Collins.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker was officially released March 26, 2019 and can be purchased at any major book retailer or via hc.com/damonyoung. I also took the author photo for the memoir, which is included on the inside of the book jacket.

The official synopsis reads as follows: From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America. For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.