Well you started the whole debate on how we spend too much time on tools and too little on design, so here's your chance to be the guiding light for wannabes like me.
How do you go from being amazed by pretty pictures in magazines or Internet to developing a personal style. I am a computer engineer and have been brain washed for too long. When aproaching a new subject I am used to looking at a flow chart of certification track of courses. So what do you think would be a design track which culminates into one being able to visualize original designs, and not combines aspects of several others into a single product. Which is my current modus operandi.