Leonardo Da Vinci was the best UX Designer in history

Every week I curate inspiration for design thinkers, curious humans and adventurous readers.

Everyone knows a little bit about Da Vinci. At least you've heard of Mona Lisa, his attempt to build a helicopter, or the Vitruvian man.

"The Vitruvian Man", Leonardo Da Vinci , 1490 — This image is from Luc Viatour.

Was he ahead of his time? Was he one of a kind? I love him and his passion to create the most beautiful and delightful things. And not only that… he was the first UX Designer that ever lived. Don't believe me? Let's break it down:

➡️ His visual design skills

Come on, really?

Job Interview situation: Imagine nowadays Leonardo with all his hipster beard, skinny pants and the interviewer like "Hi Mr. Da Vinqi!", and Leo (I will call him Leo), would be like "It's Da Vinchi". The interviewer a bit more wary: "May we see your portfolio, what do you have there in that briefcase?". Leo would grab his A3 Moleskine Folio showing some of his sketches… and at that moment the interviewer goes like 🤩 (Yes, of course he got the job).

Leonardo was a master "sketcher" because he loved to practice drawing since he was a child. He was born in 1452 out of a wedlock (naughty Mr. Da Vinci). His father, Piero Da Vinci was a rich notary, but his mom was an ordinary peasant. Because of this situation, he couldn't attend university or practice any of the noble professions, and his school time was minimal. As a child he was left mostly by himself and one of the activities he loved was to walk on the forests of Vinci (Let's talk about creativity afterwards... he lived in a town called Village of Vinci, near the Forests of Vinci 😐).

And here he got a bit lucky. His father, being a notary, had access to loads of paper (a rare commodity at the time), and Leo would grab some from his father and go to the forests to sketch. He returned day after day and enjoyed looking closely to catch the details. He was talented, that's for sure, but loving to practice was (in my opinion) one of the key factors of his success.

"Virgin of the Rocks" painting from Leonardo Da Vinci, 1486.

This is how much he would love to practice: He once was assigned to paint an angel (on a biblical assignment). He experimented with his paints and mixed a new blend that gave it a kind of soft edge that expressed a sublime mood. To capture this mood he would spend time at the local church observing people praying.

As if this wasn't enough, he also thought deeply about the wings of this angel. To tackle this "problem" he went to a marketplace, purchased lots of birds, spent hours sketching their wings and how exactly they merged into their bodies. He wanted to create the sensation that these wings were grown from the shoulders naturally. As if this human angel could fly.

➡️ Was Leonardo Da Vinci a UX Generalist Designer?

Are you a T-shaped designer? (this term became notorious in 2010 after Tim Brown {CEO of IDEO} gave this interview HERE). Or are you an I, or an X-shaped designer… (yep, there are these kinds of terminologies as well…).

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton.

Anyways, in my opinion, Leo was a generalist. He loved to paint and sketch, and he was also known for his curiosity, for trying/experimenting with new things/materials.

One idea would float into another.

For example: Regarding the birds wings I mentioned above; he became obsessed with birds and the idea that humans could fly (the helicopter idea could have unfolded here). He would spend several hours per day studying, pretty much, everything.

One of his first internships happened at the age of 14. He was hired by Andrea del Verrocchio because of the remarkable quality of his drawings (at this point Leo was drawing/practicing since he was a kid). Verrocchio's style was to expose his interns to all the sciences necessary to produce great quality work, such as engineering, mechanics, chemistry, metallurgy, and of course, painting.

The good news: Leo as an intern wouldn't be complaining that there were no ping-pong table on the office. He was eager to learn ALL of these skills, and he did with maestry.

Is being a generalist a bad thing? 🤔

Apparently not, right?!

But I am sure that nowadays, Leo would show this experience and recruiters would be like: "but do you know HTML, CSS and Javascript?" or "Sir, you are 14, you don't have enough experience for a junior UX Designer… as a matter of fact you have minus 5 years of experience at this moment".

➡️ He loved the user

There is one very little detail in his story that amazes me, the fact that he would prepare his paint every single day to have his art always with the same pigments/textures/colours. His gear had to be freshly ground and mixed every day.

Why would he do this?

Because he loved the user. He was thinking about the experience. Is it a delightful experience for the user to look at a sh*t red? Nope. So let's make a beautiful red, every single day 🎨

Since there was no Ctrl-Z at the time (we are now talking about the 1500’s) he would do lots and lots of research to, again, delight his users. He was fascinated by lips, finding them as expressive as eyes (Mona Lisa feelings). He would even sketch in different times of the day to make sure he could capture the different effects that light would have on the face.

For his famous painting The Last Supper, the stakeholder (the Duke of Milan) was quite angry with Leo for missing the deadlines. And the reason was the face of Judas. Leo wasn’t happy with the face models he had. It took him weeks visiting the worst parts of Milan to find the perfect villain face to use on Judas.