On “taste,” now hiring

Some design job listings now ask, without irony, for an arbiter of taste. I read one aloud in class. A student asked what everyone in the room was thinking: “Can you actually learn that? Or do you just have it?” It is the question I am asked most often, in different costumes. “Is design talent?” “Am I visual enough?” “Some people just see it, right?” And it usually comes from the students who are most worried that they don’t. For years I gave a diplomatic answer. I am now prepared to give a less diplomatic one.