Creativity Quote by John Hench

A “consultant for taste” sounds like a humble job title until you hear the quiet authority inside it: Hench isn’t talking about personal preference, he’s describing an ethics of attention. In a studio system built to dazzle, taste becomes a discipline, almost a brake pedal. “Good taste? Or bad taste?” reads less like insecurity than a practical test: does this choice serve the story, or just flatter the maker?

Hench’s real subject is the seduction of craft. Artists, especially in commercial art, can fall in love with the clever solution, the lush detail, the technical flex. He’s naming a common creative failure mode: excitement becomes a kind of intoxication, and “drift off from the story” is what happens when the work starts performing for itself. The subtext is managerial and protective. A taste consultant isn’t there to add sparkle; they’re there to keep the sparkle from hijacking the narrative.

Context matters: Hench spent decades in environments (notably mid-century American entertainment and design) where teams built immersive worlds at industrial scale. In that setting, “attention to detail” isn’t preciousness; it’s continuity, clarity, and emotional legibility. Which detail “tells best the story” is a ruthless question when hundreds of details are competing to be noticed.

The line also smuggles in a democratic idea of taste. It’s not about elite refinement; it’s about audience experience. Taste, for Hench, is empathy with the viewer’s attention span: guide it, don’t clutter it.