On taste, and where it comes from.
Essays on color, design, and the psychology underneath both. Most readers meet the framework here first.
- Creative Review
- Feature
- The Branding Journal
- Contributor
- Psychology Today
- Columnist, Deeper Empathy, Lasting Change
- Visual Grammar
- Essays, on Substack
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The Psychology of Refusing to Be Typed
The objection to seasonal color analysis is about autonomy, and reactance theory explains why it feels like an objection to color.
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The Trend Gap: Why the Best Design Isn’t Always the Best Branding
Rebrands that win awards can lose customers, because designers and audiences are reading for different things.
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Environmental Calm for the Autistic Nervous System
The beige wellness interior was designed for a neurotypical nervous system, and autistic adults often need something denser and more contained.
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What the Design Industry Gets Wrong About Good Taste
Design is judged by taste when it should be judged by coherence with the person or business behind it.
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Why the Seasonal Method Deserves a Seat at the Brand Strategy Table
The seasonal color method gives brand strategy a system for choosing color on purpose.
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What We Actually Mean When We Talk About Good Taste
Taste forms in five layers, from the nervous system to the culture, and most of them were set before anyone learned what was fashionable.
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Your Instinctual Drive Predicts What You Find Beautiful
The first public account of the study, which found that a person’s dominant drive predicts the visual world they choose.
Part One of the book shares its name with the Substack, and most of its arguments began there.
Longer essays on color, season, and the instinct underneath a preference. These three are a good place to start.
- In Defense of Beige
- Trending Against Yourself
- When Your Aesthetic Taste and Nervous System Disagree
- Why We Admire the People We Claim to Despise May 2026
- When Leaders Go to War, Their Psychology Goes With Them Apr 2026
- War as a Psychological State Mar 2026
- Can a Person Acquire Narcissism? Feb 2026
- Stop Calling Them “Difficult” Jan 2026
- Are They Narcissistic or Just Difficult? Dec 2025
- The Neglectful Narcissist Nov 2025
- Why “Good Vibes Only” Isn’t Really Good Oct 2025
- The Anti-Empathy Curriculum Sep 2025
- When Narcissism Becomes the Culture Sep 2025
- When Labels Hurt, and When They Heal Aug 2025
- Power, Persona, and the Narcissistic Leader Aug 2025
- Empathy Deficits, Narcissism, and Neurodivergence Jul 2025
Earlier work on narcissism and personality continues in the two books. About the author
Sterlin L. Mosley, PhD
Associate professor of human relations at the University of Oklahoma, author of two books on the psychology of identity, and founder of Zykr Brand Atelier. The book proposal, the research companion, and this portrait are available on request. Reprint and commission enquiries go to the same address.