The Story Behind the Art
Dum (José Geraldo de Souza)
Brazilian Illustrator & Creator of "Never Give Up"
I created the illustration "Never Give Up" in April 2008, exactly 17 years ago.
The image shows two men digging a tunnel in search of diamonds. One of them, already tired and discouraged, gives up just a few meters away from the treasure. The other, driven by hope and determination, keeps digging and is about to find it.
The idea came to me while I was illustrating a chronicle about persistence. At the time, social media was still in its infancy — my main platform was Orkut —, so I only actually published the artwork in 2011, on my personal blog.
Shortly afterward, still in 2011, a friend told me that the image was being widely discussed by foreigners on an international forum. I was thrilled to see that people from all over the world started using and sharing my creation. That artwork completely changed my trajectory as an artist and became one of the most globally recognized motivational drawings.
"There are men who fight for a day and they are good. There are others who fight for a year and they are better. There are those who fight for many years and they are very good. But there are those who fight all their lives: these are the indispensable ones." — Bertolt Brecht
That quotation became the soul of the illustration.
Over the years, I saw my artwork printed on t-shirts, mugs, pillows, posters, and all kinds of products. Guess how much I earned from it? Absolutely nothing. My work was copied, sold, and distributed worldwide without me receiving a single cent or even a credit.
Worse: I discovered in this year of 2025, through Twitter/X, that my illustration had become a "digital asset" in the hands of a person I have never met in my life. It took me a few months to process all of this.
I watched countless YouTube tutorials, studied the subject, and finally managed to register the original work on the blockchain with my name as the true author. It was the way I found to put a definitive end to this story and symbolically reclaim what is mine.
At 54 years old, life gave me the most perfect demonstration of the very theme of my own artwork: never give up.
And I won't give up. Never.