Developing Taste

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Emil KowalskiDesign EngineerDeveloping Taste

When the first car came out, consumers didn’t care about its color, or silhouette, because the competition was a horse.1 But now that cars have been commoditized, quality and details have become more important than ever.

The same applies to software. Simply shipping a product that works is no longer enough, everyone can do that, especially now with AI. It’s not the differentiator anymore as people expect things to work. What makes a product stand out is the brand, design, how intuitive it is, the overall experience. Taste is what matters.

In a world of scarcity, we treasure tools. In a world of abundance, we treasure taste.

But what is good taste? It’s commonly mistaken as personal preference, but it’s more than that — it’s a trained instinct. The ability to see beyond the obvious and recognize what elevates. It’s why some designs feel effortless. So the real question is, how do you train that instinct?

Surround yourself with great work

If you are a designer, you should be looking at great designs. If you are a writer, you should be reading great books. Expose yourself to great work, this way you’ll learn how greatness looks and feels like.

It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing.

Find people who are respected in their field. Look who they admire and build a curated list of tastemakers. Surround yourself with their work. Look at their designs, use their apps, read their books. Learning from the best is the best way to learn.2

Think about why you like something

While calibrating your taste, don’t label things as good or bad. Instead of relying on gut feelings, try to rationalize why something feels great. Analyze and understand patterns, don’t rely purely on your intuition.

If you’re a designer, don’t just use apps, study them. Why does a specific interaction feel good?3 If you’re a filmmaker, don’t just watch movies, think about why the director made the choices they did.

Have a mindset of thinking deeply about what makes something great. Go beyond the surface level. Be curious.

Practice

Practice your craft. Create things. A designer should design, a writer should write. This will make you not only a good judge of taste, but also, with time, a tastemaker.

While practicing, seek feedback from others. Good critique from the right person can accelerate this process more than trial and error alone.

The things you’ll create probably won’t be good at first, but that’s a good sign. Your taste is good enough to tell that your work is not on par yet. This phase is normal. Don’t quit, it’ll get better overtime.4