Being a designer is being a good communicator first. The rest is applying the gestalt. But it starts with putting yourself in the shoes of the audience and telling a story (visually).

This is why, no matter how much technology changes, from Paint shop pro, to Photoshop, to Sketch, to Figma, etc. Nothing scares a designer, because designing is a timeless skills with very few variants over time (gradients / skeuomorphic design / flat / combination ...) It's like how would you like your water, with a slice of lemon or ice?

Visual hierarchy, grouping, aligning on grids, contrasts, use of colours and tones, that's the part that's easily learnt. The why is where design is interesting.