Neurovascular catheter technology has rapidly evolved over the past decade. While performance characteristics are well known to the practitioner, the design features of these new-generation catheters and their implications on performance metrics remain a mystery to most clinicians due to the limited number of available resources. This knowledge gap hampers informed device choices and also limits collaboration between clinicians and engineers. To aid fellow neurointerventionalists, in this primer we have summarized the basic concepts of catheter design and construction.