The system to build your DESIGN.md
Your brand has taste.
Your tools don't know it.
We help you extract what makes you unique, translate it into design principles, and give you a system that builds on-brand — whether you're briefing a designer or prompting an AI tool.
The Problem
Brands have taste but struggle to articulate it.
When you describe what you want in vague terms like "modern," "premium," or "friendly," these words mean nothing. They lead to:
- Generic output — Everything looks the same
- Misaligned decisions — Designer picks blue, brand wanted warmth
- Endless revisions — "I'll know it when I see it"
- Inconsistent extensions — New pages drift off-brand
- Lost in translation — Your gut feeling never makes it to the screen
The gap isn't tools or templates. It's language.
There's no shared vocabulary between what a brand feels like and what gets built.
The Solution
A Taste Profile captures your brand's essence and translates it into adesigner's language.
It's not a just a color palette. It's the reason you'd choose one palette over another.
It's not just a font pairings. It's why serif feels right and sans-serif doesn't.
The Feeling
What emotional response should this evoke?
The Personality
If this brand were a person, who are they?
The Principles
Decision-making guidelines for any design choice
The References
What does this brand admire? What does it reject?
The Guidance
How these translate into design decisions
Make it repeatable
Captured in a system that promotes consistency
"Design systems document what.
Taste Profiles document why."
When you know the why, you can make better decisions about the what — even in situations the original designer never anticipated.
The Journey
From gut feeling to design system
Three layers that build on each other — each one making the next possible.
Discovery
Understanding who you are
Guided workshop to learn about your brand, your audience, and what makes you unique. Through conversation and visual exercises, we uncover what you love, what you hate, and why.
- Brand conversation — goals, audience, aspirations
- Visual preference exercises
- Competitor landscape review
- Existing materials audit
Deep understanding of your brand's DNA
Taste Profile
Capturing your essence
We translate our discoveries into a strategic document that articulates your brand's personality, principles, and preferences — in language anyone can use.
- Brand essence statement
- Personality description
- Design principles (5-7 guidelines)
- Reference gallery with commentary
- The "Never Do This" list
Your brand's taste in designer's language
Design System
Bringing it to life
We turn your Taste Profile into actionable design decisions — specific fonts, colors, spacing, and components — plus AI coding rules so your tools work on-brand.
- Typography recommendations
- Color palette with rationale
- Spacing & layout principles
- Component patterns
- AI briefing files (DESIGN.md)
A system to brief AI (or humans)
Most people start at step 3 — picking colors and fonts without knowing why. We start at step 1, so every decision that follows has a reason.
Example
What a Taste Profile looks like
Anonymized excerpts from real client taste profiles
Enterprise Feedback SaaS
## Essence
Professional but approachable. This is enterprise feedback software that refuses to be cold or intimidating. It fights against cluttered dashboards and generic SaaS gray. Every screen should feel like talking to someone who actually listens.
## Personality
If this brand were a person, they'd be a mid-30s Head of People Ops at a thoughtful company. Smart casual—nice button-down, no tie. They speak clearly and directly, zero jargon. At a party, they're genuinely interested in what you do and remember your name.
## Principles
1. Cool Confidence — Indigo purple conveys trust and capability without corporate coldness
2. Clarity First — Information hierarchy is unmistakable; nothing competes for attention
3. Room to Breathe — Generous whitespace; layouts never feel cramped
4. Soft Structure — Rounded corners everywhere create approachability
## Never
- Harsh black text on stark white backgrounds
- Sharp corners or aggressive angular shapes
- Bright saturated colors competing for attention
- Dense, cramped layouts with minimal spacing
FAQ
Common Questions
Brand guides document what — colors, fonts, logo usage. A Taste Profile documents why. It captures the reasoning behind design decisions, so you (or anyone working on your brand) can make good choices in situations the original designer never anticipated.
Traditional agencies focus on creating assets — logos, color palettes, templates. We focus on extracting and articulating your taste. Think of it as the strategic foundation that makes everything else easier. Many clients use their Taste Profile to brief agencies more effectively.
Absolutely. One of the most powerful uses of a Taste Profile is our DESIGN.md to guide AI tools. We provide AI-ready briefing files that help AI tools generate on-brand output instead of generic defaults.
Perfect. A Taste Profile isn't neccesarily about creating a new brand — it's about articulating the one you already have. We extract the essence from your existing materials, decisions, and preferences, then translate it into language that anyone can use.
Discovery to final typically takes 1-2 weeks. We do an initial discovery session (60-90 minutes) with async work after that. The session focuses on discovery so we can buid taste your profile.
DESIGN.md: A complete Taste Profile document including: brand essence statement, personality description, design principles, reference gallery with commentary, and a "Never Do This" list. With the Design Guidance package, you also get specific font/color recommendations and AI briefing files. This is then used to generate design token for any styling system you use.
Founders and brand owners who know what they like but struggle to articulate it. Marketing leads who need to brief designers or agencies. Anyone tired of getting generic output from AI tools because they can't communicate their taste.
The same way code is becoming disposable, so is design. We can spin up new options in minutes with AI. The key difference is that a taste profile describes the outcome by capturing the why behind your brand, so this means you can spin up new options in minutes with AI that actually feel like you.
A Design System helps you craft one platform, a Taste Profile helps you craft unlimited artifacts that feel like you.
The system helps you hire better. You're not asking designers to fix a mess. You're asking them to evolve an existing system. That's more attractive to senior designers. The system we build is designed to be extended, not replaced. When you hire a designer, they'll have a foundation to build on rather than starting from scratch.
The opposite. AI makes design systems more important, not less. AI can generate any design you describe. That's the problem. Without constraints, every generation is different. Design systems are the constraints that make AI output consistent. They're the vocabulary AI uses to understand what "on-brand" means for your product. Teams without design systems produce inconsistent products faster. Teams with AI-friendly design systems produce consistent products faster. Speed and consistency together.
We have a portal that becomes your source of truth that you always have access to. First 30 days: Minor adjustments included (tweaking colors, refining patterns). After that: Three options: 1. Maintain it yourself (it's built to be maintainable by engineers) 2. Monthly subscription for ongoing updates, or 3. Project-based updates when you need major additions. Most teams maintain simple patterns themselves and hire us for major expansions (adding mobile guidelines, new product surfaces, etc.).
We document principles, not tool-specific tricks. The core of your taste profile (colors, spacing, patterns) doesn't change when Claude or Cursor updates. The foundation stays stable. We also version the prompt library. When tools evolve, we can update prompts without rebuilding the entire system. This is why we have a portal that becomes your source of truth that you always have access to.
Build your DESIGN.md
Ready to get AI tools to follow your taste?
Stop getting generic design. Start getting work that actually feels like you without having to tell it each time.
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