SQ Collective • Design Jam

Pizza Yap

Design
taste

can be Reverse-Engineered

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Client work: an enterprise resource planning dashboard, with incident cards over a 3D wireframe of a facility.

Client work: WearMAInd, a fashion advice website, with three feature cards.

Side project: CardChing, a spending tracker app, on two phones beside a card terminal. — cardching.com

Side project: ShyWindow, a Mac app that floats any website or video above your work. — shywindow.com

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Everyone can generate now.
So everything looks the same.

An example of AI slop, a landing page: purple gradient glow, a pill badge, a centered two-line headline, two buttons and three big stats.

An example of AI slop, a services page: four cards with emoji icons and colored left edges, then a row of big stats.

An example of AI slop, a sales dashboard: purple gradient bars, four KPI cards with big numbers and a waving-hand greeting.

Sources

1, 2
Paul Bakaus, Impeccable, “Slop”. Each example deliberately exaggerates an AI design habit.
3
Maya Brennan, “How to de-slopify your designs”, UX Collective, 29 September 2026.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

The model answers
with the average.

A vague prompt asks for the most likely page. You get exactly that.

A reference moves it off the average. Taste is knowing which reference, and what to take from it.

Before

The same slide in the earlier design: paper background, lime side rail, a Why it happens label, the claim in tight black Geist and the two points under a black rule.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

A post by Zander Whitehurst, Memorisely, Design Notes 121: AI was supposed to prove design was easy. Instead, it's proving how hard good design is. The words design was easy and hard good design is are highlighted.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

WTF is
Taste?!

The prompt that built this slide: six screenshot thumbnails, then: i want all these image appear on top of the wtf is taste title after i ask the audience the question. they should appear randomly position, rotaion cover on top of the title. if you know honest trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI45ptyfBVE , that what i want, if can i want the sound too just like in honest trailer when each of them appear.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Taste means knowing why, not just liking.
Restraint is the core skill.
Algorithms flatten taste, and copying a look is signaling, not taste.
Taste is built slowly, through friction.

Design taste is an informed opinion about the details: knowing what belongs, what to cut, and being able to say why.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

4 steps

01Steal
02Remix
03Systemize
04Extend

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Step 01

Steal

Taste is a set of decisions.
Decisions can be trained.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Where to find things worth stealing

Landing pages

Product UI

Components

Motion

Community

Branding

Decks

Deck Gallery

Typography

Shaders, canvas, WebGL

Apps

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Find your taste in what you liked

Instagram
Posts you liked and saved
Facebook
Likes, reactions and saved items
Threads
Posts you liked and saved
X
Posts you liked
LinkedIn
Posts you reacted to and saved
Reddit
Posts you voted on and saved

Prompt · From a downloadTake-home

Here are the posts I liked and saved on [Instagram]. What do they have in common? Look at layout, type, color, photography and mood, and name three posts for each pattern. Then draft taste.md: what I like and what I avoid, in plain words.

Prompt · Browser agentTake-home

Open my liked and saved posts on [Instagram]. I'm already logged in. Scroll through at least 50, and only look: do not like, follow, comment or message. What do they have in common? Look at layout, type, color, photography and mood, and name three posts for each pattern. Then draft taste.md: what I like and what I avoid, in plain words.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Or let an agent learn it

Log in
On its own cloud computer
Read
Your posts, likes and bookmarks
Draft
A Taste Page, with examples
Repeat
Save it as a skill. Rerun it weekly.

Prompt · Grok BotTake-home

Open [X] on your computer and let me log in. Read my posts, likes and bookmarks from the last year, and only look: do not post, like, follow or message. What do they have in common? Look at layout, type, color, photography and mood, and name three posts for each pattern. Draft a Taste Page: what I like and what I avoid, in plain words. Save this as a skill and rerun it every Monday.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Train it with a taste test

PizzaYap's Designer bot in Grok Bot running a taste test: 1 of 10, which feels more like your kind of playful, A, Bruno Simon's portfolio, or B, Fall Guys. PizzaYap picked A. Then 2 of 10: Family's wallet site or Duolingo.

Prompt · Taste testTake-home

Do design research on [playful brands]. Find real sites and app screens, then give me a taste test: 10 quick A or B picks, one at a time, each linked so I can open it. Tell me what to judge in each pair. Write down every pick, then update my Taste Page with what you learned.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Before and after the taste test

Before: Charrette, an infinite canvas of agent cards in a hand-drawn sticker style, pastel cards, doodled loops and emoji labels. — 01Agent canvas

After: Yap Studio, a calm agent canvas with a sidebar, grouped agent cards showing live app screens, status pills, diff counts and a planner card. — 01Agent canvas

Before: Original Content Rewards, two ring charts in tall condensed type, a dotted timeline and three plain sliders. — 02Rewards tracker

After: the same tracker as a car dashboard, two glowing orange gauges, a days-left screen between them and three metal dials. — 02Rewards tracker

Before: Strip Board, agent work as rows of strips on grey racks with a red clearance panel and rubber stamps. — 03Agent studio page

After: a case-study page, Agents draft. I decide., in a large serif beside a drawn plate of the agent lifecycle with PizzaYap as the gate. — 03Agent studio page

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Study the reference

Use whenYou love something and cannot say why.

Prompt · Study01 of 03

Study [URL or clip]. Recreate only the [hero section] as one self-contained HTML file so I can study how it works. Then list the five decisions that make it feel this way: type scale, spacing rhythm, color, easing and timing, interaction. Give the exact values you used. Do not add anything that is not in the reference. Then ask me which decisions I like and why. Write my answers to taste.md in plain words, not values.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Or let a skill study it

An explain-design spec sheet for the Libraries.dev home page: the live hero in the middle, five points on what works around it, such as proof before the promise and blue means buy, and three that can be improved, such as the promise is too abstract, each with its measured fix.

Skill · explain-designTake-home

Install

npx skills add pizzayap/pza-skills --skill explain-design

Then run

/explain-design [a URL, screenshot or Figma link]

github.com/pizzayap/pza-skills

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Tell the AI what you like
about each reference

01Structure
Layout, hierarchy and density. What goes where.
02Style
Type, color, spacing personality, motion feel.
03Behavior
Interaction patterns, states and transitions.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Copy to learn.
Never ship the clone.

The study teaches the mechanism.

The next step makes it yours.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

This is what happens when someone just copies.

This is stealing.

A Steam search: 34 results match your search. Row after row of games with nearly the same name and look: Needle In A Haystack Simulator, Needle in a Haystack, Needle In a Haystack, Needle In A Haystack, A Needle In a Haystack, Needle In A Haystack, CO-OP Needle Hunt, A Needle In A Haystack: Sorting Game, Find The Needle, and Hay! One Billion!, each with hay and a needle on its cover.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Step 02

Remix

Copy. Transform. Combine.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Brand site

Landing page

Campaign

App

Game

Dashboard

SaaS

Enterprise

Feel
matters most

Build your own components
around your taste.

Structure
matters most

Borrow a component system.
Restyle it to your taste.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Take from many, not one

ALayout
From the first reference
BType
From the second
CMotion
From the third

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Bring in one thing
from outside design

01An old train ticket
Its type and numbering
02A street sign
Its colors and contrast
03A game screen
How its readouts move

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

GemGemGo

by Pizza Yap

Remixed from

A card binder and graded card slabs

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Pico Cam

by @soontiago

Remixed from

An instant camera and its prints

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Japanese learning app

by @castelin_22

Remixed from

Hanafuda cards and a ribbon bookmark

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Chengyu Calendar

by @FiachraRM

Remixed from

A tear-off paper calendar

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Remix the references

Use whenThe study works but is still someone else's.

Prompt · Remix02 of 03

Read my taste.md. Build one [home screen] for [my app] as one HTML file. Take the [layout] from [A], the [type] from [B] and the [motion] from [C], and make it feel like [an instant camera]. Borrow plain parts like lists from [a component library]; craft the moments people remember. Keep why each works, not its look, and let taste.md settle clashes. Make three versions, each leaning on a different reference.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Step 03

Systemize

Make what you like reusable.
Use it again. Remix it later.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Keep your taste as a library

Prompt · by Grok BotTake-home

Gather
What I loved and rejected, in my words
Link
A real URL and image for each. Never invent one
Graph
Hits, misses, qualities and jobs, each edge with a why
Query
Start from the job: 1 anchor, 2 supports, what to avoid
Show
A page I can filter by job
Grow
Add every new verdict, dated

Build my design taste library as a graph that you, the agent, can query before any design job. Don't write a top-to-bottom document.

1. Gather evidence. Search our past chats, notes and feedback for designs I loved and designs I rejected, and quote my actual verdicts. If there's too little, interview me: show me 10 pairs of real shipped designs, ask which I prefer and why, and log each answer.

2. Find the real thing. For every item, find its real URL (a post, site or app page) and a still image URL. Check each link works. Never invent a URL, a description or a quote. Anything you can't find goes on a "not yet linked" list.

3. Build taste/graph.json:
- Nodes {id, type, name, url, image, note, source, date}, where type is one of: hit, miss, quality, job_type, medium.
- Qualities are short reusable traits, e.g. rendered-object, playable, tactile-physics, serif-editorial, airy-type, and on the miss side generic, flat-AI-render, cartoony, restraint-only.
- Job types are e.g. landing-hero, ios-app, widget, saas-web-app, dashboard, portfolio.
- Mediums are e.g. three.js, rive, swiftui, html/css.
- Edges {from, to, rel, why}, where rel is one of: exhibits, avoid_because, fits_job, built_with, contrasts_with, evolved_from.
- Every hit and miss links to its qualities and the jobs it fits. Each edge gets a one-line "why" grounded in my feedback. Attach my verdict quotes to the misses.

4. Write taste/README.md on how to query it. Start from the job_type, collect the hits that fit it and rank them by shared qualities. Pick 1 anchor and 2 supporting references, then check the avoid_because edges. Include a tiny jq or Python example and test it.

5. Make a visual view for me: a Mermaid diagram or an interactive page I can filter by job type, showing the anchor references and what to avoid.

6. Keep it alive. After every bit of feedback, add new nodes and edges with a date. Treat the rules as guardrails, not the design itself: every new design should start from one specific anchor hit and match its level of craft.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Collect the components you like

Collect
Interactions I liked, rebuilt as working code
Tune
Sliders for the feel. Save each version.
Reuse
Copy the parameters into the next project

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Step 04

Extend

One screen, a whole product.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Turn the screen into a system

Use whenYou picked a remix and want a whole product.

Prompt · Extract03 of 03

From the screen I picked, extract a design kit for a coding agent. Write a short DESIGN.md that points to design/foundations.md (token roles), design/theme.md (the values), design/components.md (what exists, from [my component library]), design/taste.md (start from my taste.md) and design/checks.md (how to verify). Only record values actually in use. Flag inconsistencies instead of fixing them.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Now one system
designs every page.

Without the kit, each new page drifts.

With the kit, each new page matches.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Taste is your collection of experiences, and your understanding of why you and others care about them.

Here's how I develop mine.

01Copy
Find it. Name its decisions. Write down what you like.
02Remix
Take from many. Bring in one thing from outside design.
03Systemize
Make what you like reusable.
04Extend
Grow one screen into a whole product.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Nothing is original nowadays.

Everything is a Remix

Kirby Ferguson

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Do not be afraid to copy other designers.
Steer with your taste slowly. Be patient.
Design and build real products to improve.

Have fun in this journey!

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Take it home

Scan for these slides

Every prompt, with a copy button.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

Q&A

Ask anything.

Taste, reverse-engineered

SQ Collective • Design Jam

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One full day, no coding needed. Bring a project, leave with a working version.

Pick your project
Bring a website or experience you want to build.
Build it with AI
Write a clear brief and turn it into a working, interactive first version.
Review and reuse
Fix what AI got wrong, check quality and privacy, save your checklist.

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Designtaste

Pizza Yap

My work

Everyone can generate now.So everything looks the same.

The model answerswith the average.

AI was supposed to prove design was easy. Instead, it's proving how hard good design is.

WTF isTaste?!

What taste means

4 steps

Steal

Where to find things worth stealing

Find your taste in what you liked

Or let an agent learn it

Train it with a taste test

Before and after the taste test

Study the reference

Or let a skill study it

Tell the AI what you likeabout each reference

Copy to learn.Never ship the clone.

This is what happens when someone just copies.

Remix

Build or borrow the components?

Take from many, not one

Bring in one thingfrom outside design

GemGemGo

Pico Cam

Japanese learning app

Chengyu Calendar

Remix the references

Systemize

Keep your taste as a library

Collect the components you like

Extend

Turn the screen into a system

Now one systemdesigns every page.

Taste is your collection of experiences, and your understanding of why you and others care about them.

Nothing is original nowadays.

Before you go

Take it home

Q&A

Designing interactive web platforms using AI

Design
taste

Everyone can generate now.
So everything looks the same.

The model answers
with the average.

WTF is
Taste?!

Tell the AI what you like
about each reference

Copy to learn.
Never ship the clone.

Bring in one thing
from outside design

Now one system
designs every page.