Design Patterns

Patterns are just capture of the common behavior of designs. One of the good things about patterns is that once identified and given a terminology then it will be easy to for developers to communicate. Another advantage is that if you cannot think of any good way for improving the design then you can start by going through the patterns that might be relevant. Of course in the good days you will be creative and come up with great ideas - some of these could be just a variation of a pattern - or maybe some could constitute a new pattern if you could identify it out in the first place.
I don't believe we should use patterns for the sake of using patterns (i.e. leave by pattern which I think some developers are being - bindly just using patterns), patterns should be something we go back to (like the rule of thumb) when we have trouble with finding a good solution.

At the end of Kent Beck's TDD book, Martin Fowler have a comment that says that patterns are half -baked, and the rest needs to be customized to your use - thus don't use patterns blindly.