Arabic Geometrical Pattern and Design by Jules Bourgoin (1973, Paperback)

I bought this book because I thought it might be a terrific reference book to keep in my library -- I'm an artist & also a surface designer. Bingo! If you like geometric patterns that derive from various Middle Eastern cultures AT ALL, you will LOVE this book. Bourgoin includes about 190 pages of black-and-white line drawings of Islamic geometric patterns. Most pages feature one-design-per-page (which enables the printer to show the designs large enough for you to be able to precisely calculate the interrelationships between all angles, etc.), but some pages features two line drawings of (slightly simpler, but still very striking) geometric designs per page. The fact that Bourgoin restricts the visual information to line drawings makes it that much simpler for you to brainstorm colorways for each design -- without having to conceptually override somebody else's competing ideas of appropriate colorings. The (relatively small) back section of the book illustrates some characteristic Middle Eastern applications of such designs -- in installations such as cast bronze doorways, inlaid & carved wood panels, pietra dura work & mosaics, & carved-and-painted 3-D polychrome ceilings (these illustrations are in black-and-white too -- but with tones of gray included, as though they were black-and-white photographs. I'm sure I'll be referring to this book for the balance of my creative life -- I wish I had heard about it years ago! Do yourself a MAJOR favor & spring for this book!