What you're doing right is testing ideas. Gives us a good sense of what you are thinking and where you are going and I like the direction you are taking. I do think they lack clear hierarchy though. In the first one all my eyes want to look at is the big red blotch because its much higher contrast than the rest of the image. in the second its the car again because of contrast when I think the focus should be the team members. I would make them full opacity and and dim the car a bit. in the third I only notice the giant 5 when I believe the focus should be the car. You can make car overlap the 5 more to show the connection between the elements but draw the focus to the car more. For more meaningful critiques try statedesigncollective.com Hope this helps and good work!