Design patterns provide general reusable solutions to common problems in software design. They help structure code and define the way components interact. Some key design patterns discussed in the document include Singleton, Strategy, Decorator, and State. The Singleton pattern ensures a class only has one instance, Strategy encapsulates algorithms to allow flexible changes, Decorator adds functionality dynamically at runtime, and State changes object behavior based on its internal state. Design patterns improve code organization, reuse, and maintenance.