Amazon Design

Black is Remarkable 2023

A celebration of Black culture with the text "Black is Remarkable" in stylized white lettering on a black background, accented by abstract shapes in vibrant shades of purple, orange, and yellow, along with small white star shapes.
February 1, 2023

Amazon collaborated with Huston Wilson, a self-taught Art director and graphic designer, based out of Johannesberg, South Africa to reimagine the 2023 Black is Remarkable Campaign!

As we enter Black History Month, you’ll find the Amazon.com storefront has taken a new look and feel for the 2023’s Black is Remarkable campaign. The theme launched last year as a way of exploring remarkable aspects about being Black and the ways people of the African diaspora find success.

This exploration comes to life on the webpage by bridging local artistic expression and the global business landscape to embrace Black as beautiful in all the shades it comes in. Our first collaboration in 2023 is with Huston ‘Hust’ Wilson, a lettering and typography artist from Johannesberg, South Africa.

Black and white portrait photograph of a smiling tattooed young man, the artist Huston Wilson, wearing a black cap and black shirt, with his neck tattoos prominently visible.
Headshot of Artist Huston Wilson

As a self-taught creative, Hust spent a lot of his early years trying to fit in before understanding that “fighting against your own creativity makes finding your own space that much more difficult.” Eventually, he leaned into his passion for artistic expression, which began with drawing some of his favorite cartoon and anime characters from shows like Dragonball Z, then moving into more photo-realistic portraits. Hust’s work quickly became popular, which led him to secure work with a broad range of clients like Adobe, Meta, Nike, Peloton, and now Amazon!

When asked about his experience working with Amazon, he mentioned being nervous and excited as this was one of his biggest projects to date. Hust described the project as a true collaboration where Amazon nurtured a space where he can have the creative freedom to let go and let his imagination flow in whatever direction felt most organic to him. This brought him a sense of peace. He went on to emphasize how important this approach to creation and collaboration is because

Being at peace with yourself means not allowing yourself to be limited by different types of design or methods

Hust’s core aesthetic is expressed through his bold typography where he weaved a number of techniques to give the look of natural strokes on canvas to create depth and richer textural experience.

Image showcasing Amazon's 'Black and Remarkable' page celebrating Black culture. It displays a laptop screen and mobile device featuring the 'Black and Remarkable' homepage with colorful geometric backgrounds, product categories like 'Black-owned businesses' and 'holiday deals', plus portraits of Black creators and influencers. The page promotes discovering and supporting Black sellers, brands, content creators, and communities on Amazon.
Image of Black is Remarkable Web Mock up

Hust is always challenging himself to create art that will resonate with his audience, whether that is through the use of different colors or experimenting with the design itself. You can head on over to the website to see Hust’s vision for yourself, as the “Black is Remarkable” campaign will be featured starting on Feb. 1 and available for customers all year round. This is also a great way to learn about and support the Black-owned storefront that brings together Black businesses, services, authors, and so much more in one place for all of Amazon’s customers.

Illustrations by Huston Wilson

Related Stories
Read More
How do we develop more cohesive partnership across business functions at Amazon? We explore this with James Catalano and Monica Alexander.
Amazon’s Last Mile team spent two and a half weeks in Europe researching Amazon’s global package delivery processes. We talked with Justin Schafer, Sr. UX designer who gave us details about the trip.
That’s right! Alexa is headed to space and I was able to speak with one of the designers, Justin Nikolaus, that’s helping to build that experience.