Top 3 TV Recs for Building Design Taste
Kai's Howdy World #7: with practical steps to building a taste library
There's a lot of discussion of taste in the design world - especially as we watch the rapid advancements of AI. As I try to build the bridge between design and development, I've been thinking about how this affects those who work closely with designers.
This issue is geared for those who want to train their taste buds for visual design – perhaps you’re just a developer or product manager that wants to be able to communicate better with designers.
When the barrier of development advancement lowers, the solution becomes less about technical constraints and more about taste. For instance - in development, anyone can learn to write code, but understanding system design, architectural choices, and choosing the right tech stack comes from experience.
The same applies to visual design - you can learn the tools, but developing an eye for what resonates takes time.
Technical skills can be taught, while taste must be cultured.
Refined over time like fine wine.
For devs and product folks who want to level up their design understanding, I've found some unexpected sources of insight.
As a film + tv nerd - here are three low energy (and even enjoyable) shows that have helped me bridge the gap between technical and design thinking:
Inkmasters
The contestants might be called tattoo artists, but they're designers at heart. The competition throws fascinating constraints at them that any designer would recognize:
Challenge objectives which includes theme (ex: “most adaptive” tattoo) or sometimes a certain aesthetic (ex: Japanese traditional - Black & White) - and sometimes both!
Client wishes and facilitation skills
Client’s skin type and how well it absorbs ink
Time management
Originality
I find myself in awe watching these designers juggle all these constraints, and man, the stakes are high. An Inkmaster mistake isn't just a bad design you can archive - it could mean ruining someone's appearance or core identity, and in some cases, lethal consequences that requires calling in paramedics.
What also really gets me excited in this show are the non-tattoo challenges that push their artistic abilities in totally different directions.
In season 13, contestants had to create a huge canvas of pieces of gradients of burnt toast.
These group challenges show how the best designers can apply their eye to anything and make it work. It's exactly what we aim for in UX design - being able to apply design thinking to any problem, collaborate with others and come up with something better than the competitor.
Rhythm and Flow
Rhythm and Flow is Netflix's take on a hip hop competition, and it hits all the same notes as Inkmasters in its own way. The main differentiator is that the client includes the judges of the show and how much the audience vibes with the music.
I love hip hop's rawness. At its core, it's just rhythm with words, maybe with a beat layered on top. But that simplicity makes originality stand out even more. These artists often start by emulating their idols (sound familiar, designers?), but the judges have heard so many demos that being memorable - or as Cardi B puts it, "quotable" - matters greatly.
What grabs me about this show is how originality comes from fusing unique background (the content) and the creative decisions they make. Hip hop's core identity is about struggle and transformation, and Ludacris captured this perfectly:
"When you hear a new artist, what gravitates you towards them, in terms of your feeling to their music is, in hip hop, they talk about their past, where they been, where they came from, they talk about present. And they talk about where they going. You just did all of that shit in that one song. I feel your heart, your energy, and I felt the truth.
Why did I rank this as a resource for learning product design?
Because it speaks to the exhausting debate some designers have about craftsmanship versus problem-solving. The truth is, it's both.
Being a product designer means creating beautiful designs while executing impactful solutions – for the right audience. Sometimes that means bringing stakeholders along and having them trust in your vision. These hip hop competitors are doing exactly that - telling compelling stories, creating engaging flows, demanding stage presence, and building trust in where they're taking the judges and the audience.
Arcane
During Thanksgiving, I had the privilege to engage in a long discussion with my teenage nieces and nephews about friendship drama and touchy topics like anxiety coping mechanisms.
In one part of the conversation, the dynamic between friends with difficult backgrounds and of stark different ages was mirrored alongside the characters in Arcane. This was interesting to me… that they were not fans gushing about a far off fantasy world, but as people who found truth in the human connection archetypes on the show.
Sometimes the most stylized worlds reveal the clearest truths about our own.
That’s the power of craft and stories.
Beyond the relateable writing, Arcane demonstrates mastery in visual storytelling through its ability to weave together disparate elements into a cohesive whole. It’s remarkable how they've translated a fast-paced moba-trigger-instant-dopamine game world with loosely established lore, juggling the nuances of multiple worlds and genres, while maintaining a connection to the League of Legends world.
It balances different illustrative styles and unexpected music choices (a range of hip hop, punk and to country), yet maintains seamless cohesion. For designers, it offers a lesson in creativity and consistency - showing how to push boundaries while maintaining a unified vision.
The show takes the massive, complex, and sometimes disjointed world of League of Legends and makes it accessible without losing its essence.
Your Homework: Build a Taste Library
The journey of developing taste goes beyond passive watching, so of course, I feel obligated to leave you with some homework.
The key to developing taste is being active in your consumption of design - noting moments that resonate, analyzing why certain choices work, and letting these insights inform your own creative process.
Taste isn't about following trends or replicating what's popular. It’s a good start, but you want to internalize the underlying principles that make design choices effective, and bring that understanding to your own work.
The practice of recognizing good design will eventually become quick, gut feelings when you have the paint brush or cursor in hand.
Options for Creating a Taste Library
1. Low Energy and Easy Method:
Use an app that syncs between your phone and laptop. Apple notes or a text messaging app like whatsapp works well. Take screenshots of things that intrigue you, jot down why you find it compelling, and a potential use case for yourself in the future.
2. Medium Energy + Free Methods:
Personally I use Notion, and I couple it with the Notion Web Clipper, which makes saving things I find on the web very easy. I really like that it also saves the content into a document, and it will continue existing there even if the content is take down from the web. Ridd from Dive Club has a great youtube video about how he set up his taste library.
Pinterest works similarly and also has a web clipper plugin. You’ll also be linked to a large database algorithm of other design inspirations beyond visual design.
Muse is another good option that I’ve heard great things about. This is perfect if you’re an open canvas whiteboard thinker.
3. Out of the Box, Paid Option
If you're willing to invest in a more sophisticated solution, mymind offers a unique approach to building your taste library. Unlike traditional bookmarking tools, mymind uses AI to automatically organize and surface connections within your saved content. This means you can focus on collecting what inspires you without getting bogged down in organization.
Building taste isn't just about collecting inspiration
It's about actively engaging with it. Whether you choose a simple notes app or an AI-powered platform like mymind, the most important factors are:
Having a centralized place for your inspiration that you'll actually use
Regularly revisiting and reflecting on what you've saved
Challenging yourself to apply these inspirations in your work
Developing your own point of view on what makes great design
The goal is to create library and NOT a museum of other people's work, but to build a living resource that helps you develop and refine your own design sensibilities. As you curate your taste library, you'll start to notice patterns in what resonates with you – and that's where your unique design perspective begins to emerge.
An encouraging note to designers: if you have great taste, but your work isn’t reflective of it…. the fact you understand this gap, is a special skill in itself. Ira Glass has a great quote about this:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.”
I find this quote comforting as someone who is stretching my own comfort level. Trying to learn how to code/build projects while working full-time has been a struggle. I’ve made a bunch of dumb looking things!
It’s normal and you just gotta fight your way through it.
What do you think about this article? I know I have some non-designers and developers subscribed to this newsletter, so I wanted to write something just for y’all.
Also - do any of you have a taste library and how do you set it up? I’d love to hear your set up!
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Need to build my taste too. Everyone on Design Twitter seems so badass with visual design.