You are right, there is something more fundamental to strive for: purpose.
Alignment, whitespace, hierarchy and contrast are elements of visual syntax. You internalize the rules so much that when you're designing you're not thinking about it; you are thinking about what you are trying to achieve.
Say you need to design a sign-up page for a newsletter, you need to:
1. Tell users what the newsletter is about
2. Say how often it's published
3. Make them feel comfortable giving out their e-mail
4. Give some demonstration of value
As you are designing, you are thinking about what is the best way to accomplish each of these goals in a visual manner. You often don't even think where to align stuff, it just falls into place because you know where it's supposed to be.
If I were to make a parallel to code, it would be clearly internalizing the syntax of the language. You no longer think about where to indent your code, or of a comparison operator in javascript is == instead of =, you have achieved enough fluency to stop thinking about how to write code and actually achieving something.
Alignment, whitespace, hierarchy and contrast are elements of visual syntax. You internalize the rules so much that when you're designing you're not thinking about it; you are thinking about what you are trying to achieve.
Say you need to design a sign-up page for a newsletter, you need to:
1. Tell users what the newsletter is about
2. Say how often it's published
3. Make them feel comfortable giving out their e-mail
4. Give some demonstration of value
As you are designing, you are thinking about what is the best way to accomplish each of these goals in a visual manner. You often don't even think where to align stuff, it just falls into place because you know where it's supposed to be.
If I were to make a parallel to code, it would be clearly internalizing the syntax of the language. You no longer think about where to indent your code, or of a comparison operator in javascript is == instead of =, you have achieved enough fluency to stop thinking about how to write code and actually achieving something.
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Since everybody is plugging their own stuff, I wrote on the subject of programming and design here: http://method.ac/blog/design/programmers-designers.html