On Taste

Taste is the thing you can't fake. You either notice that one word is slightly wrong, or you don't. You either see that the corner of the layout feels heavy, or you don't.

People treat taste like it's mystical, but it isn't. It's just the accumulated result of caring about small things for a long time. The reason most work is mediocre is not that people lack talent. It's that they stopped caring at the point where taste would have started to matter.

You can develop taste. You develop it by looking at a lot of good work, and by looking at your own work honestly. The second part is harder.