Most books catalog patterns either by motif or historical period. This handbook takes a different approach by revealing the structural anatomy of patterns, showing how they are generated and how their parts interrelate. It demonstrates how designers and artists, whether students or professionals, can play limitless variations upon a few fundamental patterns and structural arrangements.

The book explores these configurations step by step, starting with simple symmetries of mirror reflections, rotations, translations, and glide-reflections, building to point groups and the seven distinct band or linear arrays, and culminating in the seventeen full-fledged wallpaper patterns. A concluding chapter presents a visual synopsis of the basic patterns.