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Taste is accumulated reps

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craftdesign

People often talk about taste like it's some mystical quality you either have or don't. "They have great taste." As if it was distributed at birth.

But taste is just accumulated reps.

How taste develops

Every time you:

  • Choose one typeface over another
  • Adjust padding until it "feels right"
  • Rewrite a sentence three times
  • Kill a feature that doesn't belong
  • Notice what makes a product delightful

You're building taste.

The exposure component

Taste also requires exposure. You need to see a lot of work—good and bad—to develop intuition about what works. This is why designers obsessively screenshot apps, why writers read voraciously, why musicians listen widely.

The pattern recognition builds subconsciously. Eventually you can feel when something is off, even before you can articulate why.

Taste as a moat

In a world where AI can generate infinite content and code, taste becomes increasingly valuable. The ability to curate, refine, and know when something is "done" is deeply human.

Keep making decisions. Keep iterating. The reps compound.