Intricate patterns are big right now in design. They can make your boring run of the mill design look stunning, and give you the opportunity to include textures and shapes in your design that might not have been included. However, detailed patterns can often be difficult to create, which is why I was happy when I ran across PatternHead.

PatternHead is a stock pattern website that sells intricate vector patterns for only $5 each. Because each design is vector, you can use them on your website, in a print brochure (up to 200,000 prints) or even get them printed into real life wallpaper or gift wrap. All the patterns are seamless – meaning they can be repeated an unlimited number of times.

And if you're looking for something original, PatternHead also offers custom design services starting at only $100 – which is not too bad for an original piece of art for your design. Check it out at http://www.patternhead.com and be sure to let me know in the comments of any other places you like to get pattern designs.

In case you didn't know, there are two little hidden gems inside Adobe Illustrator CS3. Hidden away and largely undocumented kuler and knowhow can be found inside "Window > Adobe Labs".

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For those of you unfamiliar with egaroo.com and bla.st, they are both visual web directories - with egaroo using banners, and bla.st using a custom business card sized format. Both offer the ability to add your own image and link to your site for free, but one of them comes out on top. Measuring my traffic between April 9 and June 15 (the day since Citrik Acid has been posted on both sites) I came up with the following results.

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A couple of months ago I discovered bla.st – a visual "card" directory. Basically bla.st lets you upload a "business card" for your website, allowing your site to be discovered on their main website and throughout their network. I instantly fell in love with the entire concept, as it was not only a great way to get traffic to my sites, but also a great place to casually browse the internet for new and exciting websites.

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Using CSS to create rollover buttons is a much better method than javascript. Not only does it allow users who don't have javascript enabled to view your buttons, but it also lets you create cleaner code and allows you to update the buttons quickly when needed.

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Web statistics are big right now. In fact, if you don't have good statistics software installed chances are you aren't optimizing your website properly. I have been fortunate enough to use Google Analytics since it launched, but I have always found the interface to be cluttered and hard to use. Fortunately, there is a new player in the market.

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