Or the things that go through my mind in the car.

Design, art really, is a form of communication. Whether it’s emotions or a direct message, they are all trying to communicate something. The rules of design are like the rules of language. Line, shape, value, space, they are the constants that allow the viewer to interpret the message. Some are inborn in all humans, others are taught to us by our culture. Only once you know the rules can you break them properly without losing your viewer. An infamous example on the Internet is programmers who go back later and can’t decipher their own code. They broke the rules by not commenting properly so the message is lost.

Breaking the rules properly draws attention to a desired part of the message without obscuring the whole.