Taste is a muscle, not a gift.
Before you touch Figma, learn to see. This chapter covers what taste actually is, why everybody's starts out bad, and the exact routine designers use to sharpen it.
How taste is built, step by step
- Taste starts lowEveryone's does. Your eye just hasn't seen enough good work yet. That's fixable, and the green bar is your taste.
- CollectSave anything that stops your scroll. Ten a day, all into one swipe file.
- DissectZoom in and name exactly why it works: one loud colour, a hard edge, lots of space.
- CopyRebuild it yourself. Your hands learn what your eyes already know. (Practice only, never publish copies.)
- RemixChange one thing. Better or worse? Why? That question is where judgement grows.
- CritiqueAsk people what they saw first. Then go round the loop again, forever.
What even is taste?
Taste is two abilities working together: noticing differences other people miss, and judging which version is better for a purpose, then being able to say why.
A person with taste looks at two posters and doesn't just say "I like the left one". They say the left one has one clear focal point, the headline is big enough to read from across the street, and the colour echoes the product. Taste isn't magic. It's pattern recognition plus vocabulary, built from looking at thousands of examples.
Your tongue can tell Coke from Pepsi because you've had both loads of times. Design taste is the same: look at enough good stuff and your eyes learn to "taste" the difference.
Psychologist Robert Zajonc showed in 1968 that we like things more the more we are exposed to them. Your eyes literally learn to prefer what they see often. So if you look at cheap, cluttered design all day, that is what will feel "normal" to you.
Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2).That's the whole trick: change what you look at and your taste changes.
Your taste will be ahead of your hands. That's good.
Radio host Ira Glass made a famous point about beginners in any creative field: you start out because you have good taste, but for a while your work won't live up to it. That gap hurts, and it's where most people quit.
The only way through is volume. Make lots of small things, finish them, and your skill slowly catches up to your eye.
The five-step taste workout
This loop is what every good designer does, whether they know it or not. Do it daily for 20 minutes.
Collect
Save every design that makes you stop scrolling into one place (Are.na, Pinterest, a folder). This is your swipe file. Aim for 10 a day.
Dissect
Pick one and write three sentences: what grabbed you, how it's built (colours, fonts, grid) and why it suits its audience.
Copy
Rebuild it pixel by pixel in Figma. Painters have copied masters for 500 years. It's how your hands learn what your eyes know. Never publish copies as your own.
Remix
Now change one thing: the colour, the font, the layout. Did it get better or worse? Why? This is where judgement forms.
Critique
Show it to someone (a Discord, a friend, r/design_critiques). Ask "what's the first thing you look at?", not "do you like it?"
Forever
Senior designers with 20 years in still keep swipe files. The loop never ends; it just gets faster.
Feed your eyes the good stuff
| Source | What it's good for | Watch out |
|---|---|---|
| Are.na | Calm, ad-free moodboards. Lots of designers and artists, very little trend-chasing. | Slow to search. That's a feature. |
| Savee / Cosmos | Curated visual inspiration: posters, branding, type. | Everything looks great as a thumbnail. Ask whether it would work in real life. |
| Fonts In Use | Real-world typography, searchable by typeface. Brilliant for learning pairing. | None, it's a gem. |
| Brand New (UnderConsideration) | Reviews of real logo and identity redesigns, with expert reasoning. | Read the comments for the arguments, not the insults. |
| Behance | Full case studies: brief, process, final. | Many projects are concepts that never shipped. |
| Dribbble | Polished UI shots, icons, illustration. | Optimised for "pretty" over "useful". Don't let it become your only diet. |
| Mobbin / Godly / Siteinspire | Real app screens and well-made websites. | Copy patterns, not identities. |
| The physical world | Book covers, supermarket packaging, metro signs, museum posters, menus. | Nothing. This is the best school there is. |
Styles you'll keep bumping into
Knowing the movements gives you names for what you see. Learn to say "that's very Swiss" and you've levelled up.
Bauhaus
Primary colours and pure geometry: circle, square, triangle. "Form follows function." The ancestor of modern design.
International / Swiss Style
Strict grids, sans-serif type (Helvetica, Akzidenz), asymmetry, objective photos. Most corporate and UI design descends from it.
Memphis
Loud, clashing colours, squiggles, confetti patterns. A rebellion against "good taste". It comes back every decade.
Brutalism
Exposed structure, default fonts, hard borders, intentional "ugliness". Honest and bold, but easy to do badly.
Minimalism
Remove until it breaks, then add one thing back. Lots of whitespace and few elements. Looks easy, but it's actually the hardest style.
Y2K / Chrome
Glossy chrome, bubbly type, sparkles, futuristic optimism. Huge with Gen Z right now.
How to spot generic design
Templates and AI tools have made the "default look" everywhere. Learning to recognise it is the fastest way to stand out.
- Purple-to-blue gradients on everything
- Glassy cards floating on a blurry blob
- Every section centred, same size and same spacing
- Emoji used as icons
- One "safe" font in one weight
- Stock 3D characters with no link to the brand
- A palette pulled from something real: a place, a product, an era
- Clear contrast in scale: one huge thing, many small things
- Type with personality, used with discipline
- Custom illustration or photography
- Constraints: "only two colours", "only one font"
- Details that reward a second look
Generic design is like a school uniform: neat, but nobody remembers who wore it. Good design is the same uniform with your own badge, your own shoes and a reason for both.
Homework (the fun kind)
Make your swipe file
Create an Are.na or Pinterest board called "Taste". Add 10 things today: posters, apps, packaging, anything.
Supermarket safari
Walk down one aisle (cereal, shampoo, chips). Photograph the 3 packs that grab you first. Why those?
Name the style
Find one example each of Bauhaus, Swiss, Memphis and Minimalism in the wild or online.
One dissection
Pick your favourite saved item and write the three sentences: what, how, why.