Taste is often dismissed as something shallow or subjective. But at its core, it’s a form of literacy—a way of reading the world. Good taste isn’t about being right. It’s about being attuned. To rhythm, to proportion, to vibe. It’s knowing when something is off, even if you can’t fully articulate why.

The people with taste aren’t always the loudest.... See more

While it’s probably one of the corniest things I’ll ever write in this column, I’ve come to believe that developing taste is not so unlike going to therapy; it’s an inefficient, time-consuming process that mostly entails looking inward and identifying whatever already moves you. It’s the product of devouring ideas, images and pieces of culture not... See more

Like many writers before me, I tend to lean on vague hand-waving when the need to define taste, or rather, good taste, arises. A common trope is to use the phrase US Supreme Court justice Stewart famously gave to describe obscenity, a similarly hard-to-describe bedfellow of taste, in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” In design, good taste can be... See more