Visual design literacy is the price of entry into the design field. If your design craft skills are substandard, and you have no sense of the context for design, no amount of interpersonal or organization skills will help you. Designers must be masters of the elements of design (that is, line, color, shape, form, value, size, texture, motion and space), as well as have an understanding of design as it relates to —and impacts— culture
D. Holston in the Strategic Designer — tools and techniques for managing the design process