At the core of any successful design, or art, successful communication of an idea is what's important. While tastes in art are always subjective, I believe that communication of an idea is a valid metric of how “good” a painting or magazine is. If that core message is lost, garbled or never present in the first place, then anyone observing will lose any interest at all.
Communication doesn't necessarily need to be a overtly obvious in design in the same manner as our body language and tone of voice says as much as our spoken words do. My goal is to communicate ideas and messages through good graphic design in the most appropriate manner.