Luis Mendo: Designer turned illustrator on making things that could only come from you

0:21Aarron Walter:Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably human. His drawings are populated by bespectacled bird-like figures, which are part alter ego, part philosophical sparring partner, and they're rendered with a kind of warmth and specificity that you just can't prompt. There's a hand behind every line, and you feel it, and it's not an accident. It's philosophy. Because as we talk about in the show, as non-human intelligence becomes cheaper, human touch and real, earned interpersonal trust will become the rarest currency. Luis's path here is anything but direct.

0:58Aarron Walter:After two decades as a successful art director and editorial designer in Amsterdam, where he was building magazines, running teams, living inside of meetings and inboxes, he took a sabbatical in Tokyo and he just never came back. Not because the work dried up, but because he found something better. A life built around drawing shaped by Japanese craftsmanship culture and grounded in the Shokinen ethic that says, if you're going to do a thing, you do it properly, all the way, no shortcuts. And today, Luis publishes his work through a membership site that he built himself on his own terms on a platform that he controls.

1:37Aarron Walter:He's obsessed with making things worth keeping, including a beautifully crafted physical book he sweated every detail of, right down to standing at the press to get the colors right. At a time when so many of us are asking what creativity even means when machines can approximate it on demand, Luis has an answer. Make things that carry your presence and make things that could only come from you. You can explore his work and join his community at mundomendo.com. Also, Luis has a special offer for Design Better listeners. Get 20 % off a membership to his site by visiting the link dbtr.co slash mundomendo.

2:15Aarron Walter:This is Design Better, where we explore creativity at the intersection of design and technology. I'm Eli Woolery. And I'm Aaron Walter. If you're hearing this, you're not currently on our premium subscriber feed. Design Better premium subscribers enjoy weekly episodes. That's four episodes per month rather than just two. And all of them are ad-free. Plus, you'll get an invitation to our monthly AMAs with the smartest folks in design and tech. And if you subscribe at the annual level, you'll also get our toolkit, a collection of our favorite design and productivity tools like Perplexity, Miro, Read AI, and more.

2:53Aarron Walter:You'll hear a preview of this episode, but if you'd like to hear the full conversation, please consider becoming a premium subscriber at designbetterpodcast.com slash subscribe. The podcast is available to everyone through our scholarship program. So if you can't afford a subscription, just shoot us an email at subscriptions at the curiosity department dot com. We'll help you out.

3:24Aarron Walter:We'll return to the conversation after this quick break.

3:31Aarron Walter:design better is brought to you by wix studio the platform built for all web creators to design develop and manage exceptional web projects at scale learn more at wix.com studio

3:46Aarron Walter:and now back to the show

3:54Aarron Walter:Luis Mendo, welcome to Design Better. Thank you for having me. We're extremely excited to have you here. This is one of those episodes where a guest approaches us, and I didn't really know of you before, but the more I dove into what you're working on, I just really love it. And you sent us these lovely little books, which I've got a bunch of notes pasted into. And I just really love your creative philosophy and the things that you're interested in. And I think we're going to talk a lot about that. But as a starting point, I thought it might be good to talk a little bit about just its topical.

4:26Aarron Walter:And we do cover it a lot. So hopefully people aren't tired of it. But I think your perspective on it is especially interesting. So, you know, there's this idea right now of AI challenging or taking over so many different creative disciplines. And there's a little section towards the end of your book where you're having a dialogue with a little bird character. It's kind of about your muse. and one of the panels says, what's the point of being human if we're on the brink of AI replacing all of us? And the response to it is a quote from a woman named Anu Atluru, which says, AI will flood the zone with intelligence, but as intelligence gets cheaper, presence gets more expensive.

5:03Aarron Walter:Real earned interpersonal trust will become the rarest currency. When tech is everywhere, people are the new edge. So maybe we could start there and talk a little bit about that and your perspectives on the world we are right now living in. That's interesting. It's already a field that you can talk about for hours. You know, it's interesting to see how nowadays we are talking about AI all the time. And I've been looking from the fence for a while. It feels so scary and overwhelming and all we're going to be replaced. But actually, once I dove into it and I started using it a bit more, I realized that this thing is just a glorified calculator.

5:44It's nothing else. And also, I think we should stop saying AI. We should say LLMs. The AI, the artificial intelligence, still doesn't exist. What you have is LLMs, very clever systems, learning models, and they are language learning models. And they are just trying to guess things and connecting things with each other. And they're very good talking to each other, like in the machines between them. They're very good at that. So yesterday I was trying to set up in a way that whenever somebody buys my book, I would just get an email with their data so I know where to send it and then fill Excel sheet with their address and their phone number, etc.

6:20So that I don't have to do it by hand, which I was doing for, you know, 500 books. And it's a lot of work. So I thought, OK, why am I doing this thing? It's taking my time from drawing. It's taking my time from writing poetry. It's taking my time from smelling the flowers. I don't want to do this thing. And that's what these LLMs are very good for. And I think we should stop being so panicky about it. They are just a glorified calculator, as I say. And as we go on, what they have to find out is a way of doing this work in a more environmentally friendly. I think that this is the big conundrum.

6:54And what I don't like to use them because every time I'm conscious, like, oh, I'm polluting the earth more every time I make a question or I do something with it. So I try to use it very carefully and for things that I think, okay, it's going to save me time and it's going to make my life richer. I'm trying not to pollute the world too much. See it as a tool. I would never ask a paperclip to make a drawing for me. A paperclip is a paperclip. It's just to put some papers together. I heard yesterday Rick Rubin. He was saying that if you give the same question to five different LLMs, they will give you more or less the same answer.

7:30But if you give the same question or the same sentence to five different filmmakers, they will make five different movies. The machine will never be able to do that.

7:39Aarron Walter:Does AI fit into your workflow in any way, shape, or form? I mean, is it useful in your life? I use it for all this boring stuff because I'm not a native English, and I write everything in English. English is not my mother tongue. So I do use it for a final grammar check or search for synonyms or how do you say this again? And I have like three different translators in my cloth. One that goes from Spanish to English, then one that goes from English to Japanese, and one that goes from Dutch to English. Because Spanish and Dutch are my first languages. So for me, sometimes I know the word, but I only remember it in Spanish or only in Dutch.

8:20That's how I use it more like a translator friend.

8:23Aarron Walter:Yeah, you're truly a citizen of the world. You spent 20 years in Europe as a creative director working on magazines. And then you kind of hit a wall and you found yourself wanting to rethink your life, re-evaluate some things. Take us into that moment where you realized that you had this career. By all intents and purposes, you were very successful. But you had this moment where you felt like you needed to rebuild your career and not just your career, but your life. And now you're living in Japan. So you kind of hit the reset button. Take us into that in those moments. So originally I went to Holland to study one year graphic design art school.

9:05And I stayed there for 20 years. And what you say, you know, I was a graphic designer, mainly editorial design. I was creating magazines from the ground up. I was redesigning magazines. I was doing also some design work. And that went very well. I was good at it, it seems. and I liked it, but I have a problem that I looked a lot like my dad. My dad has three jobs, very unhappy life at home and always working, working, working. And I seemed to do the same. So when my father passed away, I stopped and I thought, okay, why did my father pass away? He passed away because of stress and unhappiness mainly, which created health issues.

9:45And I thought, damn, I'm doing the same thing. Absolutely the same thing. I'm unhappy. I am, you know, working too hard. I have so many things in my head. I'm always on meetings and emails. I'm not really enjoying what I'm doing. Yes, design is nice, but most of the time it happened after 5 or 6 p.m. when everyone would stop calling and we had no meetings. And then finally I had time to design. So what am I, a designer or a caller? I'm a meeting person. I'm a manager. What am I? And I thought, no, no, no, this is not good. So I took a three-month sabbatical in Japan, in Tokyo. And I can tell you, from the moment I stepped into the plane, which was a Japan Airlines plane in Schiphol in Amsterdam, from the moment I stepped in, I thought, I love Japan.

10:30It was like everything. The music they had, the smell in the plane, the flight attendant uniforms, everything looked great.

10:38Aarron Walter:It's wonderful. This is wonderful. What a great country. And I was still in Amsterdam, you know, like physically. I was still not, I didn't leave yet. When I arrived, it was only a confirmation. It was like, this is a great country, like so calm, so clean, everything works. I loved it so much that I spent another four years trying to come back as much as possible. And at the end of the four years, I said to my wife, listen, I'm not happy in Amsterdam anymore. I would really love to live in Japan. And that's what I did. I just moved first for a year. But after six months, I realized like I'm not coming back to Europe.

11:12And then I stick around for another 14th almost now. So I'm here now for 14. But of course, you know, I was kind of burned out. My father had died. I was kind of like, what do I do with my life? And when I arrived in Japan, I could not work as an art director and as a designer anymore because I couldn't speak the language. So I thought, well, let's take a break. Let's have one year, just do nothing. Just do drawing and discovering Japan and whatnot. So I met this friend of mine who is called Adrian, Adrian Hogan, who is an Australian. and he was drawing all the time, like all the time in the cafes, on the street, even walking, he was drawing.

11:53And I thought, oh, this guy, I would love to be like that. So I just stick around with him, you know, like, oh, can I tag along and draw with you? And I started to draw more and more and more without thinking this is going to be my job another day. But then a friend of ours, she said to me, Luis, you're drawing all the time, but you don't have a job. What are you doing? Why don't you become an illustrator? I said, well, you know, one thing is drawing and another thing is becoming an illustrator. They're two different things. And she said, well, you should go to my agent and maybe they want to take you and then you do some projects.

12:25So I did just for fun, you know, like Stefan Sarkmeister, when he moved to Hong Kong, and he showed his portfolio just for fun. He was like, oh, can you want to watch my portfolio? And then he stayed in Hong Kong for years. But I was a bit the same. I thought, oh, I'll do the same thing. I would just go to the agent and show my work and see what they say. And to my surprise, they signed me on the spot. They were like, yeah, we love it. And I thought, okay, so you love it, but I don't think clients will like it. And just in a week, I had my first job for a Japanese client, some wine label, and then a second job, and then a third.

13:01And then the thing started rolling, and all of a sudden, I was an illustrator. It was a big surprise first, because the money is much lower than a designer. So when you're a designer, you're used to some certain level of money and comfortability that in illustration is a different thing. You have to fight a lot and you have to work a lot in order to get there. So at the beginning, it was like, well, okay, I'm getting less money, but I'm happier. And it's just drawings, fine. So as you go, you learn and you grow. And it became really my thing, drawing. And now I don't do any design anymore already for years, except, you know, the occasional logo for some friend or something.

13:39I don't do any design work anymore. And I'm loving it, to be honest. And yes, the money's less, but I'm so much happier.

13:47Aarron Walter:So you were just talking about how this language barrier was in some sense a constraint that might have liberated your creativity. Could you talk a little bit more about that, how that part of it happened? The thing with language is that we think that language is important, and it is actually much more important than we think. But, you know, many people that say, oh, I would love to live in Japan, but I would never be able to speak the language. which therefore I will never be able to move. I've been living here 14 years. My Japanese is really bad. It's very limited. It's like very, you know, elementary.

14:19And I live here. And I don't rely on my wife for everything. Most of the things I do it on my own. I use Google Translate. I use hands and feet. And I use a lot of drawing. And I also learn to read the air. So people talk to me and I just kind of guess what they are saying. And I hear, okay, I understand four words. and by the face expression I get the message. So it works really well. But it's liberating not knowing the language because factually you live in a bubble. And this bubble, you know, because you are isolated from all this talking and people talking about movie stars and about their problems at home or whatever the boss said to them or something.

15:00And I don't hear all that. So I have more time to look inside and go inside myself and then about my drawings and about my projects. And I learn also to observe much better. So I look a lot and I observe how people move, how they dress, their actions. And that helps a lot in my career as an illustrator because I learn a lot about body positions, but also I learn a lot about clothing language. I don't know. I think I have a more fulfilling life because I don't understand the language than when I was living in Amsterdam and I understood absolutely everything. and it's mostly noise, politics, and whatever people are talking on the street and the conversation of the person next to you in the cafe.

15:45So I really enjoy this kind of living in an island that I think more people should experience at least once in their life. It's a kind of introspection, but also at the same time, you are very much involved with your surroundings because you're not distracted by the talking points of the people around you.

16:01Aarron Walter:That's interesting. I would think that that would be fun for a while and then it would sort of be like a constraint that would be a burden. But I'm curious what living in Japan and being immersed in Japanese culture and history has taught you about life and creativity. Mostly Japan has taught me about being intentional. What do I mean by this? If you would see my daughter, she's six years old. When she was even three, she had to fold a towel. And the way she did that, it was a shock to me. The amount of attention and the perfection that she was trying to flatten the towel while folding it. So, you know, the amount of attention that she put into folding the towel was for me like an eye opening.

16:48Because if you do something, you do it well. And that's very Japanese. So I remember the very first, second month of living here, I went to a bookshop. And I had bought a book for my son. And I was in a hurry. and I said, well, can you wrap it for gift wrapping? And the guy started doing it, but very slowly. And I was in a hurry and I was like, I'm so sorry, can you please hurry up? And the guy stopped, looked at me super serious and he said, do you want to gift wrap it or not? He didn't understand making it quick. He didn't want to make it quick and it didn't fit in his head. Like, what do you mean?

17:25You want it or not? If you want it, I need to take my time to do it well. These kind of details, I can tell you like thousands of these, these kind of details is what affects your life as a foreigner living here, that you understand and learn from the way they do things. And it's very enjoyable. And also, you know, broadens your mind. I'm a Spanish guy. I moved to the Netherlands when I was 19. So it broadens my mind going to the Netherlands. And then now I broadens my mind living here again. I have the feeling that I have like three lives. and three moments where I had to learn from zero. And I love it.

18:05Maybe one day I will move out of here. I don't know because nothing beats Japan, but it would be nice to go somewhere else and then discover something completely new. At the same time, it's so comfortable and my life is so great that I don't think I will ever live.

18:19Aarron Walter:It's interesting, Luis, the speed thing. I missed a train with my family three times in a row, not far from where you live in Nagano. Okay. We were at the train station, and we missed our train by a couple minutes. Even though we were right there, they would not let us in because they had already closed the doors. And so I went back to the ticket station and talked to a lady, and she's like, oh, okay. So she gets out a very lovely, well-designed little page where she's going to write out all the details about the next train that I could take, which took about 30 minutes. And so by the time I got down to the platform, I had missed the train yet again.

18:58Aarron Walter:So I went back to her. And she's like, oh, okay, well, let's adjust that. And she got out the same piece of paper and took another 30 minutes. And I missed the train yet again. Are you kidding? There's like no sense of urgency of what we're trying to do here. I don't know if we have to fill out a spreadsheet to get a train ticket. I don't know. Actually, you know, in fact, you could have taken the next train and your ticket would have been valid. Only your chair, your seat wouldn't be reserved. But it's interesting. I had something recently also that I thought, oh, my, in Japan. Like, if I have to pay my taxes, I can only do it on the office, in the bank office.

19:38I have to go to the bank office in person. And I'm like, come on, is this a transfer, you know, from me to the IRS, to the tax office? But still, no, it has to be you. It's very much like that. But, you know, I enjoy it in a way. And I love it when they say, oh, can you fax this to me? I'm like, yes, someone who still uses a fax. That's fantastic. Let's go for the fax. And then I can go to the conbini, which is, you know, the 24-hour supermarkets, and they all have a fax machine. So I can fax anytime, whenever I want. I could probably do the digital, but I prefer to go to the shop because it's fun.

20:13There's this guy, and if you have a problem, you can ask him, oh, how do I fax this thing? It's much more rich. My life here is richer because of these things. And I know, yes, there are more convenient ways of doing everything, But I was talking to my friend, Matthew, the other day about friction. And he was saying that he would like to write a book about friction. And I think friction is something that is so underrated. It's a good thing. And I'm missing it. I miss it all the time. With friction, you have happy accidents. You have serendipity. You have unexpected moments and encounters that you wouldn't have if everything weren't smooth.

20:47My son, he takes the Uber everywhere. I'm like, why don't you take the bus or the train? You know, it's so much more fun that you can sit next to someone that you don't know. It's like a conversation or bumping to the love of your life. Like, please take the train, man. We are getting used to this frictionless life, which is actually too cold. And it doesn't give you anything new.