There’s a reason fashion designers look to animal prints for inspiration. Creatures have evolved a dizzying array of patterns: stripes, spots, diamonds, chevrons, hexagons and even mazelike designs.

Two designers share how to mix color, scale, and pattern with circus stripes—and exactly where to use them for the biggest impact.

Stripes are common in our lives. It’s a pretty basic pattern, and easy to take for granted. As an applied mathematician who studies how patterns form in nature, though, I am wowed by the striped ...

Some patterns arise simply or randomly, but others develop via complex, precise interactions of pattern-generating systems. Their beauty aside, the intricacies of these systems are inspiring the ...

Close your eyes—now picture yourself in the warm summer sun in Southern Italy. The sea is glittering and you can smell the refreshing, salty breeze. Sitting in your lounge chair, you’re wrapped in a ...