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Luis Mendo is a Spanish-born illustrator based in Nagano, Japan, and his work is unmistakably, irreducibly human. His drawings are populated by bespectacled bird-like figures — part alter ego, part philosophical sparring partner — rendered with the kind of warmth and specificity that no prompt can summon.
There’s a hand behind every line, and you feel it. That’s not an accident. It’s a philosophy. Because as we talk about in the show, as non-human intelligence becomes cheaper, the human touch—and real, earned, interpersonal trust—will become the rarest currency (to paraphrase Anu Atluru’s quote below).
Luis’ path is anything but direct. After two decades as a successful art director and editorial designer in Amsterdam — building magazines, running teams, living inside meetings and inboxes — he took a sabbatical in Tokyo and never really 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 shokunin ethic that says if you’re going to do a thing, you do it properly, all the way, no shortcuts.
Today Luis publishes his work through a membership site he built himself, on his own terms, on a platform he controls. 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.
In a moment 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. 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/mundomendo.
Bio
Luis Mendo is an artist and author based in Japan.
Luis studied graphic design in Spain and The Netherlands. After working as an editorial designer and creative director for 20 years in Amsterdam, Luis moved to Tokyo and changed his career to drawing. His illustrations can be found on books, websites, magazines, advertising and clothing worldwide.
His artworks have been shown in art galleries in Spain, France, Japan, South Korea and the USA.
Preferred subjects include sensory-driven stories, city/urban life, interiors, objects, animals and people in context. Also travel, narratives, feelings and human interactions. Luis’s illustration signature is to make mundane things look special and make visible the invisible. He can’t avoid impregnating positivism to everything he draws.
He was the Creative Director and co-founder of creative residency Almost Perfect together with his wife Yuka, from 2018 to 2025.
In 2024 Luis launched Mundo Mendo, a membership program where he shares art, stories and thoughts that subsequently and annually become printed books
In the newsletter called The Illustrated, Luis shares and promotes his favorite illustration talent.
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