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.

Ever since I was young, I can remember when I cared about design. I got my first gaming console when I was around 8, it was the PS3. I remember loading it up and in awe of everything within it. The colors, the animations, the PlayStation profile pictures, all of it amazed me because of how charming it was. Even the sound design when navigating the home screen was so satisfying. I remember it feeling so intentional, like the creators knew they had something special in their hands and put love into their work.

I would say with music that's the only thing that inspires me is just that feeling. I'm trying to reclaim the feeling I got when I had Halo 1 for the first time when I was like seven years old it's the only feeling I'm looking for.

It's quite evident to me now that my first experience with good design had an impact on me. Design is everywhere, it is what is put forth to the world in a way that makes the human experience so unique. I remember when I was around 11 I had a laptop with Photoshop on it and would make edits of sports teams and players and post them on social media as well as for clients. The style of editing was popular back then, and I remember just using everything I had at my disposal for the edits like random textures, lighting from unique sources, etc. It all culminated into a consistent end product that I was proud of, but the means to get there certainly was not consistent.

This eclectic mindset still applies to who I am today. I am interested in many different creative pursuits like fashion, photography, videography, architecture, poetry, etc. I think at the root of all of these passions are one thing, design. At the root is a source of visceral passion for the human experience and what it means to be alive. This is what design is: a reification of the human experience. Through design, our experiences, emotions, trauma, memories, all of it, are taken from our mind and placed into the medium that is being worked with. This is why Steve Jobs talks about taste so much, it's not just about seeing what to do, but our experience with the best things that humans have made fundamentally change who we are which then shapes our expression of that experience.

Design goes beyond just placing a box here and selecting that color and choosing this palette. It is integral to the human experience and matters a great deal. We choose design and in turn, design shapes us. It is a shaping factor that cannot be casually accounted for.

I am an eclectic. I gather inspiration from magazines to fashion to films to music, etc. All of these mediums share the same root of the reification of the human experience, so it is naive to believe we cannot share a vision across mediums to culminate in great taste and inspiration.

Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you're doing.

I don't think anyone can be a designer. It takes a specific amount of taste, exposure, and execution. But I think the taste it takes is trained, through years of examining what you like and what makes it so great, as well as feedback from others.

I just have very specific tastes and I know what I like, from my toothbrush to my wardrobe. Everything is very simple, very basic. I only have one of everything, but it's the one I like the best. And wherever I go, I curate a very similar space, a similar atmosphere that's somewhere between spare and minimalist. It's kind of random, but a good-looking chaos.

I believe the best designers design everywhere. They see how this color can be switched with that on an advertisement, they want their room to be a certain way, they want their clothes to look a certain way, the way they get up in the morning should be this way. At the root of it all is a natural caring for what is put forth into the world, to extract meaning out of the ordinary and abnormal. Because of this, a natural unfolding occurs of the love and care for detail. Details remain not as an out of reach concept, but as something to be scrutinized because that is where the depth of love reaches. It is in the detail where the care shines the most. Take for example a romantic partner. It would be antithetical to love to discard certain qualities, interestes, habits, etc. of your partner just becuase you do not like them. With love, you are bounded to face everything something or someone has to offer, both the negative and positive traits. This is why love and passion for the human experience is so essential for the best design, becuase without those qualities, there is no earnest care for everything that might be expressed.

When I reflect on formative experiences that shaped my design sensibilities and taste, I realize that what captivated me wasn't just visual appeal, but intention, the sense that someone cared deeply about creating something meaningful. Great design ultimately builds a bond between functionality and emotion, between utility and beauty, and between the user and designer. My ultimate goal is to capture that feeling I first had when using my PlayStation 3. Something beyond algorithmic efficiency, rather, something done with passion, love, and the pursuit of greatness.