I don’t like it anymore. Nothing changed.

You find an old design in a folder.

You remember choosing those colours. Moving that heading around. Finally looking at it and thinking, yes, this feels right.

Now you open it and wonder why you made half those decisions.

The strange part is that nothing happened to the design while you were away. It’s exactly what you left there.

Something happened to the person looking at it.

Maybe you’ve learned more. You notice spacing you couldn’t see before. You understand why the page feels crowded. You can explain what you’d change.

That sounds like growing.

But sometimes the explanation is harder to find. You just don’t like it anymore.

I wonder how much of that comes from what we’ve been looking at recently. Spend a few weeks seeing the same kind of typography, colours and layouts, and something you once liked can start feeling wrong.

Would you have wanted to change it if you hadn’t seen those other things?

I don’t think being influenced is a problem. We’re going to change as we see more of the world. But I’d like to understand what changed, rather than immediately assume my old choices were bad.

Maybe that design had something I’ve stopped appreciating. Maybe it really does need work.

Before replacing everything, I think it’s worth remembering why it felt right the first time.

How do you know when your taste is growing, and when it’s just following?