# Taste

*How I curate my taste*

Taste is the tool I built to collect the work that inspires me. Everything goes in with one click, gets described and tagged by AI, and can be found again by what it looks like, not by where I happened to save it.

- Case study by Bram Rutten, freelance designer (https://www.bramrutten.be/)
- Page: https://www.bramrutten.be/work/taste
- Services: UI & UX design, Application design

![The Taste library: a grid of saved references, app screens, websites, photos and videos, with a search bar at the bottom.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/library.BO9dA-pW_Z6I0nz.webp)

## One place for everything that inspires me

Design references used to end up everywhere: screenshots on my desktop, bookmarks, saved posts and the odd folder. Taste brings them together in one place: images, websites, videos and notes, side by side in one grid.

![A saved website: a preview of Isa de Burgh's portfolio, with its title and domain.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail-link.BwUpOFr5_WnGi8.webp)
*A website, with its own preview.*
![A saved post from X: a video of animated stamps, with the author's name and the post's text.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail-post._zjc-k_g_qlRqt.webp)
*A post, with its author and text.*

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## Saving without thinking

A Chrome extension saves the page or image I'm looking at with one click, or a right-click on an image or a piece of text. A small confirmation appears, and I keep browsing. Saving the same thing twice simply moves it back to the top.

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## Letting AI do the sorting

Every reference is described and tagged by Claude, which also looks at the images themselves, and its colours are picked out.

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![The detail view of a saved photo of a minimalist living room: the photo on the left, its AI-written title, description, category, tags and collections on the right.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail.APnMDoyd_1gEiSE.webp)

![Close-up of the detail panel: the title, a description of the photo, its category, tags and collections.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail-panel.CwmqgCoL_1P1Gy7.webp)
*Title, description and tags, written by AI.*
![Close-up of the toolbar on a saved image: a copy button and five colour swatches, one showing its hex code, #716b5b.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail-colours.7H7pHv0W_Z1B6z4c.webp)
*Copy the image, or any of its colours.*

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## Search by meaning

Search combines keywords with meaning, so a search for a calm dashboard with green accents finds exactly that, even when none of those words were ever typed.

![Search results for 'calm dashboard with green accents': calm interiors, a green-tinted dashboard and health app screens.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/search.xngN6PMT_Z1adk7v.webp)

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## Collections that work as a brief

Collections group references for a project. For each one, Claude writes a short style brief and pulls out a palette, ready to copy into a design tool or hand to an AI. Drag a reference and your collections open up as drop targets.

![A reference being dragged in the library: the collection tray opens above the search bar, and the card hovers over Portfolio taste.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/drag-to-collection.BLIKTY9j_2aLc8O.webp)

![The Portfolio taste collection's card: its name, 35 items, and its palette.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/detail-collection.CGZaWtgO_w37Ri.webp)
*The Portfolio taste collection…*
![The sphere of references on the My taste page of this site, built from that collection.](https://www.bramrutten.be/_astro/my-taste-sphere.kqQsv_Ym_fx8Rd.webp)
*…becomes the sphere on my My taste page.*

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## Built to stay small

Taste is a personal tool, so it's built to be quick, private and cheap to run: Next.js on Vercel, with Supabase for the database, files and background work, all on free plans. The only running cost is the AI that describes each new reference.