Close your eyes and read this: "Think different." You know instantly who said it. Not because of a logo or a colour or a typeface. Because of two words. Two words that sound like no other brand on earth. Two words that contain an entire philosophy, an entire aesthetic, an entire way of seeing the world. That's what taste in words looks like at its most potent.
Now here's the uncomfortable truth: most brands couldn't pass that test with their entire website, let alone two words. Strip away the logo, the colours, the photography, the design system, and what's left? Copy that sounds like every other company in the same category. "We're passionate about delivering exceptional experiences." "Our mission is to empower people to achieve their potential." "We believe in the power of innovation to transform the way we live and work." You've read these sentences a thousand times. You've never once remembered who wrote them.
Voice is the deeper taste decision
Design gets all the attention in taste conversations. Colours, typography, spacing, imagery - these are the visible, shareable, Pinterest-able elements that people point to when they talk about a brand's aesthetic. And design matters enormously. But voice is harder. Voice goes deeper. And voice, when it's right, is more memorable than any visual identity.
Think about Oatly. You could redesign their packaging in Figma in an afternoon. But the copy? That unhinged, self-aware, oddly personal monologue that appears on every carton? "It's like milk, but made for humans." "The boring (but very important) side of the package." "We spent an unreasonable amount of time on this." That took years to develop. It took a company willing to let a specific person's personality become the brand's personality. It took the conviction to be weird when every other oat milk brand was being earnest and nutritional.
The copy IS the brand. Remove the design entirely - print the words in Times New Roman on a white background - and you'd still know it was Oatly. That's the test. That's what taste in words means.
The invisible taste moments
In advertising, I watched the same brief produce wildly different work depending on the writer's taste. Two copywriters, same strategy, same product, same audience. One would write something competent and on-brand. The other would write something that made everyone in the room sit up. The difference wasn't talent, exactly. It was taste. An instinct for the right word, the right rhythm, the right amount of personality. An ear for how language lands.
This extends far beyond advertising copy. Every product is full of words, and every one of those words is a taste decision masquerading as a content task.
Error messages. Most apps treat them as functional afterthoughts. "An error has occurred. Please try again." That's not a message - it's a shrug. Slack's error messages have personality. Mailchimp's have warmth. Stripe's have clarity. These aren't accidents. Someone with taste sat down and thought about how it feels to encounter a problem, and what words would make that moment less frustrating. That's taste applied to a moment most companies don't even think about.
Onboarding flows. Empty states. Loading screens. Confirmation messages. Button labels. Tooltip text. These are the spaces where most products sound like robots, and the best products sound like themselves. They're the typographic equivalent of how a restaurant's loos tell you everything about whether the owners actually care.
The brands that get it
Apple's copy is economy. Not minimalism for its own sake - economy. Every word earns its place. Every sentence has been reduced to its essential weight. "The best iPhone we've ever made" is boring in isolation, but the discipline behind it - the refusal to oversell, the confidence to let the product speak - that's a voice. And it's instantly recognisable.
Patagonia's voice is activism made conversational. "Don't buy this jacket." "The President stole your land." They don't sound like a brand writing brand copy. They sound like a mate who happens to care deeply about the planet. The informality is the point. It signals authenticity in a way that polished corporate messaging never could.
Monzo's voice is friendly clarity. Banking has always hidden behind jargon and formality - it's a power move, making customers feel like they don't understand their own money. Monzo did the opposite. Plain English. Short sentences. The tone of a helpful friend who happens to understand finance. It transformed not just how they communicate but how the entire challenger banking sector talks.
Why companies get this wrong
Most companies treat copy as the last step. The design is finalised, the layout is locked, and someone is asked to "fill in the words." Usually the cheapest available person. Sometimes a committee. Often, nobody specific at all - the words are written by whoever is building the page, with no more thought than you'd give to labelling a folder.
This is taste debt of the worst kind, because words are what people actually read. You can have the most beautiful design in the world, but if the copy reads like it was written by a different company - or worse, by no one in particular - the whole thing falls apart. The dissonance between beautiful design and generic copy is like a beautifully plated meal that tastes of nothing. The form promises something the substance doesn't deliver.
The fix isn't hiring more copywriters, though that would help. The fix is treating voice as a design decision. Giving it the same weight, the same attention, the same creative leadership that visual identity receives. Having someone who cares about language the way a design director cares about typography - someone who can feel when a sentence is right and when it's merely functional.
Words reveal values
Ultimately, the words you choose reveal what you value. Formal language values distance and authority. Casual language values connection and accessibility. Precise language values clarity. Playful language values personality. None of these are inherently better or worse. But they're all choices. And making them consciously, with taste, is the difference between a brand that sounds like itself and a brand that sounds like everyone.
I think about this constantly with my own projects. The names I choose - Trove, Curio, CultureTerminal - are taste decisions. They say something about what the product is and who it's for before a single feature is explained. The way I write button labels, the tone of the descriptions, even the microcopy on empty states - these aren't afterthoughts. They're where the personality lives.
Design is what people see. Voice is what people hear. And in a world where everyone has access to the same design tools, the same templates, the same visual conventions, voice might be the last truly distinctive thing a brand can own. It's the taste decision that no Figma template can replicate. The one that takes years to develop, seconds to recognise, and an entire organisation's conviction to maintain.
If you can only invest in one aspect of taste, invest in your voice. Everything else can be borrowed. Voice has to be earned.
