Illustration of an aesthetically pleasing painted rose

If there is one thing you can say about people, it is that we all like different things. Books, fashion, art, hobbies, travel. Our tastes vary wildly.

Which is exactly why, when it comes to design, you and your designer (or you and your partner, and your sister’s boyfriend’s cousin) will often disagree on the look.

Design aesthetic is subjective. What your designer creates for you might not be to your personal taste, and that can be unsettling. But here is the thing that surprises most people: whether you happen to like it matters far less than you think. Good design was never really about taste. It is about results.

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Your designer isn’t trying to give you something you like

They are trying to give you something that works. Something that connects with your target market and earns its keep. The right aesthetic depends entirely on what your business does and who you are selling to, not on what happens to catch your eye on the day.

There is a hidden trap here too. When you show a design to your partner or your team and ask what they think, you can quietly chip away at your own trust in your designer. Put it to a vote, watch the majority veto it, and you start questioning the work, often for all the wrong reasons. A good designer is not simply handing your own taste back to you. They are drawing on years of experience, real research, and an understanding of what will actually work for your brand and the people you want to reach.

Why taste plays second fiddle to results

Ask yourself one question: would you rather a design that looks the best, or one that performs the best? Ideally you get both, but when they pull in different directions, performance has to win. Design exists to earn a return, and there is hard evidence that good design does exactly that. McKinsey tracked 300 companies over five years and found the most design-led among them grew revenue 32% faster and delivered 56% higher total returns to shareholders than their peers, outpacing their industries by as much as two to one. A separate Design Value Index found design-driven companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 228% over a decade. Taste does not produce numbers like that. Strategy does.

When either you or your designer gets too wrapped up in how something looks, the real objective slips out of view. The goal is for your brand to solve your target market’s problem through content and design working together, and that is exactly where a clear brand strategy earns its place.

How you judge it The question you ask What you end up with
By taste Do I like the look of it? A design that suits one person’s eye
By results Will this work for my audience? A design that drives the business

The AI design trap

There has never been more pressure to judge design on looks alone, because looks have never been cheaper to produce. AI tools and bottomless template libraries mean almost anyone can generate something that looks polished in minutes. That sounds like good news, and in some ways it is, but it has quietly raised the stakes.

When everyone can make something that looks nice, “nice-looking” stops being a point of difference. What sets brands apart now is not whether a design is pretty, it is whether it is built on strategy: the right message, for the right audience, aimed at a real commercial goal. A template cannot know your customer. It is the same reason a generated logo can look perfectly fine and still be a bad logo. Polish is not the same as effectiveness, and the best work often does its job so well that good design becomes invisible, getting people to the result without ever shouting for attention.

It’s all in the consult

So if aesthetic is subjective, how do you tell whether your designer has delivered something that works, even when it is not to your taste? After all, it could be the designer with the questionable taste. The answer is in the consult. A good designer invests time upfront, walking you through their process and helping you get clear on the right direction before a single thing is designed. Expect them to ask a lot of questions about your business, such as:

  • Who is your target audience?
  • What problem does your business solve?
  • What are your values?
  • What is your mission?
  • What does your brand voice sound like?

If your designer never asks these kinds of questions, they cannot deliver a results-driven design, and whatever they produce is really just their own taste in disguise. In that case, it is in your interest to push back, because if you are not getting something built to work for your business, you may as well get something you actually like. Knowing your audience this deeply is the foundation of any good brand strategy, and it is what separates design that performs from design that just decorates.

A good designer can explain every decision

When a good designer presents their work, they do not just reveal it and hope you nod along. They walk you through it: the facts, the research and the thinking that shaped each decision. If they have moved away from the direction you expected, they should be able to tell you why, and more importantly, how that choice benefits your business.

That is the real tell. Design you can interrogate, where every element has a reason behind it, is a very different thing from design that simply looks the part. One is the product of strategy. The other is the product of someone’s afternoon. If your designer cannot explain the why behind their choices, that is far more concerning than whether the colours are to your liking.

Why a good designer pushes back

Part of a designer’s job is to educate and advise, not simply to execute. So when you come back asking for changes or tweaks, do not be surprised if they push back. If someone with years of experience is hesitant about a change, it usually pays to hear them out before you insist. You may still choose to proceed, and that is absolutely your call as the client.

But the process works both ways. A good designer will also ask about the reasoning behind your requests and take your thinking into account, rather than digging in for the sake of it. The best outcomes come from that two-way conversation, where their expertise and your knowledge of your own business meet in the middle. Neither side simply getting their way tends to produce the weakest result of all.

Signs of… A strategic designer A taste-led designer
The starting point Questions about your business and audience Straight into visuals
How they judge success Whether it works for your market Whether it looks good to them
Presenting the work Explains the reasoning behind every choice Reveals it and hopes you like it
When you request changes Advises, then discusses the why Agrees to anything, or refuses outright

Frequently asked questions

Is design aesthetic subjective?
The look of a design is subjective, yes. Whether a design works is not. A design can be objectively assessed against how well it connects with your target audience and supports your commercial goals. That is why personal taste is a poor way to judge it, and strategy is a far better one.

Should I choose a design I like or one that works?
One that works, every time, when the two pull in different directions. Ideally a good designer delivers both, but the purpose of design is to get a result for your business, not to match your personal preferences. Design-led companies measurably outgrow their peers, and that comes from effectiveness, not taste.

Why doesn’t my designer just give me what I want?
Because their job is to give you something that works for your audience, which is not always the same as what appeals to you personally. A good designer bases their decisions on research and experience, not on guessing at your taste. If they simply handed back what you asked for, you would be paying for a pair of hands, not their expertise.

How do I know if a design is good if it’s not to my taste?
Look at the process, not just the picture. Did the designer ask about your audience, your values and the problem you solve? Can they explain the reasoning behind each decision? Strong, considered answers are a far better sign of a good design than whether it happens to match your taste.

Should I ask my team or family for their opinion on a design?
Be careful with this. A vote among people who are not your target market, and who are judging on personal taste, can undermine your trust in good work for the wrong reasons. Feedback grounded in your actual audience and goals is useful. A popularity contest among friends usually is not.

Can I still request changes to my designer’s work?
Of course. It is your brand and your call. Just treat it as a conversation. If an experienced designer hesitates over a change, hear out their reasoning before you decide, and share the thinking behind your request so they can factor it in. The best results come from that exchange, not from either side simply winning.

Design that works starts with strategy

If you find yourself judging designs purely on taste, it is often a sign there is no strategy guiding them in the first place. With a clear brief built on who you are and who you are for, the conversation stops being about what you like and starts being about what works. That is the difference a real brand strategy makes.

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