As AI democratizes the ability to build products, the competitive advantage shifts from technical skill to the ability to appeal to human emotion and aesthetics. Having 'good taste'—knowing what will resonate with people—becomes a crucial differentiator for attracting and retaining customers.
Developing taste isn't about chasing trends. It's an introspective process of identifying your core values and aspirations—like stoicism, adventure, or family tradition. You then find the aesthetic language in fashion, design, or writing that authentically communicates that internal identity to the world.
The path to developing an authentic style begins with direct imitation. Like a musician learning a classic song, copying the work of masters—whether in writing, design, or fashion—is a necessary step to internalize the underlying rules and 'texture' of what makes their work great before you can innovate.
There is a critical distinction between good and great taste. Good taste is defined by understanding and operating effectively within the established rules and traditions of a domain. Greatness is achieved only after mastering those rules and then intentionally breaking them to create something new and influential.
Groundbreaking products are rarely created in a vacuum. Steve Jobs's iPod was directly inspired by Dieter Rams's 1950s Braun radio, which itself was a product of the Bauhaus design movement from the 1920s. True innovation comes from deeply studying and building upon historical precedents.
A tactical method for building aesthetic sense in web design involves saving admired websites and then manually reproducing them in Figma or on paper. This practice forces you to understand the placement and proportions, after which you can identify the shared design language and study its formal rules and history.