taste
musings on taste
sari and
taste
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
Elizabeth Goodspeed on the Importance of Taste – And How to Acquire It
As technology advances, software will increasingly be chosen not just for how well it addresses its use case, but how it conveys its personality, similar to how we choose our clothes. We’re already beginning to see this shift. In highly individualized spheres like note-taking tools and consumer crypto, software is often chosen based on identity.... See more
Andreessen Horowitz (AZ) • Why We Crave Software With Style Over "Branding"
Quality emerges from the complexity of the system in action ; it is in the how rather than the what. Thus, when Quality is broken down into parts and analyzed, its essence is lost. This explains why analysis alone has trouble discerning the authentic from the artific ial. Moreover, Quality frozen in a theory or process cannot be recognized in... See more
Anonymous • Conviction
“Rather than understanding taste as the particular way a person does a thing, I will argue that taste is a measurement of how well a person is able to see and act within a problem space. That it is the ability to skip ahead over previously assimilated decisions to get to the heart of a matter. And that the process of doing this over and over within a domain turns the many small insights made into a muscle memory of shortcuts that are stored as aesthetic feelings, away from the cognitive expense of language and reason. Much more than just a style of doing, good taste is a measure of a person's intuitive understanding of a problem space.”
not many brands are built wholly on irony in this way – however perhaps they should be, given how meta and self-referential popular culture has become.
alex • Taste: The secret ingredient - Basic Arts
We're in the era of modern software companies as lifestyle brands.
We've passed the basic utility phase; now, it's about delivering an experience and forging an identity that resonates with the aspirations and values of your audience.
UX has become a fashion statement, and standout products... See more
Extrapolating from the premise of Aspirational Humanity, I’m proposing that charisma, not taste, may be the most covetable skill in the age of AI. Perhaps your aesthetic sensibility is irrelevant, as long as you can hold a great conversation. AI can style your outfit, but it’s not going to be a helpful wingwoman at the bar. As our external facades... See more