Branding

To start very generally, taste is a mode. It’s a manner of interpretation, expression, or action. Things don’t feel tasteful, they demonstrate taste. Someone’s home can be decorated tastefully. Someone can dress tastefully. The vibe cannot be tasteful. The experience cannot be tasteful.

Though taste may appear effortless, you can’t have taste by mistake. It requires intention, focus, and care. Taste is a commitment to a state of attention. It’s a process of peeling back layer after layer, turning over rock after rock. As John Saltivier says in an essay about building a set of stairs, “surprising detail is a near universal property... See more

People with negative taste make things by trying something very simple and then stripping away pieces until it looks good. They can detect goodness, but not create it, so they’re limited to designs with very few variables, because then they can go thru all the options and pick out the ones that look OK.

People with positive taste, on the other hand,... See more

a) I use generative AI primarily for concepting and moodboarding. It helps clients imagine what their brand identity could look like. I save time browsing stock image libraries or trying to describe art direction concepts (“It would look like this illustration depicting a car, but it would actually show a jar of cream!”). AI-generated concepts then... See more

Good design is often slightly funny.

This one may not always be true. But Durer's

engravings

and Saarinen's

womb chair

and the

Pantheon

and the original

Porsche 911

all seem to me slightly funny. Godel's incompleteness theorem seems like a practical joke.

I think it's because humor is related to strength. To have a sense of humor is to be strong: to kee... See more