I always order the same thing. Iced long black. No milk. No sugar. No variations depending on mood. It's become automatic to the point where I don't even think about it anymore. The barista asks, I answer, and that's that.

It's a small ritual, but it says more than it needs to.

An iced long black doesn't give you anywhere to hide. If the coffee's good, you know immediately. If it's bad, there's nothing masking it. No foam, no sweetness, no distractions. It's clarity in liquid form. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that preference shows up everywhere else too, especially in creative work.

We spend a lot of time talking about output. Direction. Execution. The work itself. But very little time talking about the inputs that shape it. The things we scroll past, sit with, half-watch, half-read. The references we absorb without ever bookmarking or saving. That's where creative direction really forms.

Every creative decision is downstream of consumption. The imagery you're drawn to. The brands you instinctively trust. The ideas that feel tired the moment you hear them. None of that appears out of nowhere. It's accumulated. Slowly. Passively. Often without intention.

If your daily intake is rushed, shallow, or algorithm-fed, your work will carry that same energy. It might look fine on the surface. It might even perform. But it won't hold. There'll be a hollowness to it that's hard to articulate but easy to feel.

This is where a lot of creative direction loses its edge.

Not because the people involved aren't talented. Not because there wasn't enough budget or time. But because the reference pool is too narrow. Same platforms. Same creators. Same recycled ideas bouncing between decks and feeds until they lose all texture.

Good creative direction isn't about having better ideas on demand. It's about having a deeper internal library to pull from. One built over time through curiosity, restraint, and an ability to sit with things without immediately turning them into content or inspiration.

Some of the strongest creative thinkers I know don't chase references at all. They read widely. They notice spaces, objects, conversations. They watch films without pausing to screenshot frames. They travel without framing everything as future output. Their consumption isn't frantic. It's intentional.

They trust that if something matters, it'll stick.

That's the difference between collecting references and building taste. References can be gathered in an afternoon. Taste takes years. It's shaped by what moves you, what bores you, and what you decide isn't worth your attention. It's informed by proportion, pacing, restraint, and the confidence to leave things out.

And taste has a memory. When pressure hits, it surfaces instinctively. Not the trend you saved last week, but the things you've absorbed slowly and honestly.

You can see when this is missing in the work. Creative direction that leans too heavily on obvious references. Concepts that feel like translations rather than interpretations. Visual worlds that collapse the moment you remove the caption explaining them.

There's also a harder truth here that doesn't get talked about enough. Consuming less can make your work better.

Not less curiosity. Less stuff.

Scrolling isn't research. Exposure isn't understanding. And filling every quiet moment with content doesn't make you more informed. It just makes it harder to hear your own judgement.

Being selective about what you let in is part of the craft. The same way you'd protect a concept from too many opinions, you should protect your mind from low-grade input that dulls your edge.

Your habits shape the ceiling.

That's why the small things matter. The coffee you order. The way you read. What you give your attention to when there's nothing to prove. These moments don't feel like work, but they are. They're training your eye. Calibrating your judgement. Setting the tone long before anyone asks you to.

What you consume determines what you create.

Once you really accept that, the brief becomes the easy part.

Shot of the good stuff.