Why Taste Matters More

"Taste gives you vision. It's the lens through which you decide what matters, and just as importantly, what doesn't. Without taste, design drifts into decoration or efficiency for efficiency's sake. Devoid of feeling. With taste, you can see a brand clearly before it even exists, and then pull every detail into alignment. Experience, on the other hand, is efficiency. It helps you ship faster, avoid mistakes, and manage the moving parts of projects. That's valuable-but it doesn't set direction."

"Knowledge gives you action. It's the "how" of design-which fonts pair well, how to structure a layout, how to make a system hold together. But knowledge today is abundant. AI can surface it instantly, and a quick search can hand you the answer. Knowledge shouldn't be taken for granted, but it's no longer scarce. Taste, though, is scarce. It can't be automated, shortcut, or outsourced."

Design excellence relies on three capacities: taste, experience, and knowledge. Taste provides vision and the ability to prioritize what matters, preventing design from becoming mere decoration or empty efficiency. Experience delivers efficiency, faster delivery, and project management, but does not set direction. Knowledge supplies actionable how-to guidance—typographic pairing, layout structure, and system cohesion—but is abundant and easily surfaced by AI. Taste is scarce and cultivated through prolonged looking, editing, comparing, and curating. Taste creates a coherent point of view and consistent luxury across channels and should be prioritized in hiring and collaboration decisions.

Read at Carlbarenbrug