This article won't start out well, because I'm sort of at rock bottom in my career and it seems that I'm projecting my frustrations of the industry out in the open. But I promise you, my rants are merely neutral observations and opinions. I love talking to people, and over the last 2 months of unemployment (I am now employed), I called upon designer friends all in Asia and Europe
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.
Every Friday, the Design Mindset podcast invites listeners into a world where design isn't just about making things look good-it's about grappling with the profound shifts technology brings to our daily lives. Hosted by Radhika Seth, the show peels back the layers of not just how designers work, but how they think, feel, adapt, and influence the world around them.
Where do we stand now? Emotions run high and some feel strong about the one solution to our current predicament. Designers that are strong visual designers say: taste will save us. It's the last frontier in our fight with AI. With endless options generated by AI, someone will still need to decide which option is best. That would be us, with taste as our unfair advantage.