It’s common practice among book designers to call unused work a “killed” cover. This always felt aggressive to me—maybe a little raging against the publishing machine—but I decided to stop using the phrase when I worked on a book literally called Don’t F*cking Kill Yourself, a memoir by a journalist wrestling with his father’s suicide and his own suicidal ideation.

Here’s an unused cover for that book I’m particularly fond of. Broke out the typewriter for this one—no fonts here!