Critique #1: Taste
October 9, 2025
Summary
Our first Critique session started by slowing the room down. Andy reframed what “Critique” means here: a space to explore the thinking and meaning behind ideas, and what it says about us. The topic that surfaced above all others was TASTE. Marty grounded it in beauty as wholeness, with everything working together toward a purpose. Taste emerged as the quiet ability to recognize that wholeness. Something shaped over time through exposure, practice, failure, and attention.
As the conversation opened up, taste moved beyond aesthetics. It touched client decisions, restraint, simplicity, judgment. It drifted into ethics and culture and class and power. The tone stayed thoughtful, even personal. No easy answers were offered. No grand conclusions were reached. Just a shared recognition that taste isn’t decoration. It’s a signal of care. A standard you hold yourself to. A way of deciding what belongs, and what doesn’t.
Selected Quotes
Defining Critique
“A critique is an exploration of the thinking and the meaning behind ideas.”
On discomfort
“You’ll know we’re doing this right if you start to feel uncomfortable.”
On taste as ability
“Taste is the ability to recognize beauty in any discipline.”
On beauty
“Beauty is a quality of wholeness or harmony that generates pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction.”
On learning taste
“Nobody is born with good taste.”
On developing it
“You have to work toward it. You have to test it. You have to try it in the real world.”
On simplicity
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
On truth
“If you simplify enough, you’ll find out if you’re lying.”
On clients and markets
“Clients don’t care if you have taste. They care if it works.”
On natural beauty
“Everybody knows it when they see it.”
On power and taste
“The ones with power and influence tend to have better taste.”
On beauty without purpose
“There has to be a purpose. That’s how you judge whether it’s beautiful.”
On the real work
“Taste can be an editorial standard.”
Level C is a school of brand and business design, offering Masterclasses and Critiques to shape the way we think and practice. Our current schedule, including links, can be found here.
