When two co-founders have opposing aesthetic tastes, the core problem is not who has the better eye but the lack of objective criteria for judging. Sinh Vũ handles this by separating personal taste from the brand question, then building a scoring framework based on business goals and target customer behavior, so the final decision does not depend on who persuades whom.
In this article · 6 sections
Sinh Vũ has met this situation many times: two co-founders sit at the same table, both wanting the best for the brand, but looking at the same design option they see two completely different things. One sees it as right. The other sees it as wrong. And both have their reasons.
The problem is not who has better aesthetic sense. The problem is that two people are using different yardsticks to judge the same thing, and neither says what their yardstick is.
Taste is not the enemy
Taste is formed over many years: the brands you admire, the experiences you have had, the markets you have been exposed to. It is not wrong. It is data.
When two co-founders have opposing tastes, it usually means this: one is reading the brand from an internal perspective (what we want to express), while the other is reading it from an external one (what customers will think). These two perspectives do not contradict each other. They complement each other. The problem only arises when no one realizes which perspective they are standing in.
A brand is not what you say about it. A brand is what others say about it.
A brand is not what you say it is. It is what they say it is.
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap
This sentence has a practical consequence: when two co-founders argue about aesthetics without data on who "they" are and what they think, the whole debate takes place in a vacuum.
Why the decision doesn't get made
Sinh Vũ sees a recurring pattern: the studio presents an option, the two co-founders look at it, and each starts pulling in their own direction. One says "it needs to be more modern." The other says "it needs to feel more approachable." The studio is stuck in the middle, not knowing whose direction to follow. After a few rounds, the option becomes something no one wants.
The root cause is not different tastes. The cause is that there are no shared criteria for judging.
Without criteria, every design discussion revolves around personal impressions. And no one can be wrong about a personal impression. So no one can give way.
The criteria framework: separate taste from goals
The first thing Sinh Vũ does in this situation is ask both founders the questions at the same time, not each one separately.
Who exactly does this brand serve? Where is the target customer in the buying journey, and what do they need to feel in order to trust the brand enough to buy for the first time? What stage is the business at: looking for an initial identity, or needing to systematize in order to scale? Over the next three years, what position does the brand need to hold in that segment's mind?
These questions are not about taste. They are about goals. And often, two co-founders agree on goals more than they think.
From those answers, Sinh Vũ builds a set of evaluation criteria. Not many: usually four to five. Each criterion is a question that can be answered with "yes" or "no", or a specific scale.
- Does this option speak accurately to the target customer segment? (Based on what is known about customers, not the founder's impression.)
- Does this option set you apart from your closest competitor?
- Can this option work consistently across touchpoints (packaging, social media, retail space)?
- Does this option serve the next stage of growth, or is it only right for your current scale?
Who scores, and how
Both co-founders score using the same set of criteria, independently, before sitting down to compare results. Sinh Vũ does not score on their behalf. Sinh Vũ explains the criteria and presents the reasoning for each option.
When the two of you have finished scoring and sit down together, one of three situations usually emerges.
Scenario one: the scores are close, differing on only one criterion. The question then narrows: does that criterion really matter at this stage? The answer is usually found within fifteen minutes.
Scenario two: the scores differ widely on the same criterion. This is usually a sign that the two people understand the criterion in different ways. Sinh Vũ goes back and redefines that criterion clearly before moving on.
Situation three: the scores differ completely across many criteria. This is a signal that the two co-founders have not yet agreed at the positioning layer, not the aesthetic layer. The solution then is not to adjust the design but to sit down and clarify positioning first.
Decision rights: put them in writing
One thing Sinh Vũ usually asks two co-founders to do before a project begins: agree on how brand decision rights are divided.
It is not complicated. You only need to state clearly who has the final say on each type of decision. Positioning and core message: both decide together. Identity system design: the person in charge of the brand (or a designated person). Day-to-day communication content: whoever is responsible for that area.
Once decision rights are written down, each design decision stops being a chance to reopen the whole debate. Both co-founders know who owns this decision, and who offers input.
The physique sets the stage; the other five aspects create meaning.
Jean-Noël Kapferer, The New Strategic Brand Management
Aesthetic taste belongs to the "physique" in Kapferer's description of a brand: the visible part, and the easiest to argue about because everyone has a feeling about it. But the part that creates lasting value is the other five facets: personality, culture, relationship, reflection, and self-image. When two co-founders agree on those five layers, disagreements about aesthetics can usually be resolved.
What the studio does not do
Sinh Vũ does not take sides. We do not persuade one person to follow the other. We do not look for a "middle ground" by blending two aesthetic directions into one option, because the result is usually an option with no clear character.
Sinh Vũ also does not keep presenting new options before there are shared criteria. Presenting more without an evaluation framework only creates more data to argue over, and does not solve the root cause.
What Sinh Vũ does is keep the discussion at the right layer: when discussing criteria, discuss criteria; when discussing options, discuss options, without mixing them. And always bring the question back to the one party who can judge objectively: the target customer.
This figure does not say that better-looking design produces higher revenue. It says that companies that treat design as part of a business decision, not as an internal aesthetic contest, achieve better financial results. That is exactly what this process tries to do: turn a debate about taste into a decision about strategy.
References
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (New Riders, 2003). Jean-Noël Kapferer, The New Strategic Brand Management (Kogan Page, 2012). Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (Oxford University Press, 2010). McKinsey & Company, The Business Value of Design (2018). Lucidpress/Marq & Demand Metric, The State of Brand Consistency (2016, updated 2019).