I’m in two graphic design social media groups and I have the hardest time with some of these ‘self-taught’ designers. They get their hands on a bootleg copy of photoshop, learn a few tricks, show their sad little creations to their mother or their auntie, get a referral to design a flyer for 25.00 and boom! Another bad designer is born. Hired mainly because they come cheap, they don’t know the first thing about about any of the fundamentals you’ve listed and now, so many have seeped into the industry that the consumer no longer knows or cares about good design vs. garbage. I was going to write about this myself, the importance of a basic design education, but you’ve said it all.