A structural beam refers to a light field that is"customized"in both space and time, characterized by its unique distribution of amplitude, phase, and polarization state in both space and time. Recently, research on structured light beams has developed rapidly. This has led to the evolution of a special distribution of optical parameters from specific spatial transverse and longitudinal structures to customized spatiotemporal structures. This type of beam with different spatiotemporal structures has brought breakthroughs in many fields, including optical communication, optical sensing, optical micromanipulation, quantum information processing, and super-resolution imaging. Therefore, various methods have been proposed, and related devices have been manufactured to generate structured light beams by adjusting the distribution of various optical parameters of the beam in spatial and spatiotemporal domains. This study mainly introduces the preparation methods for different types of structured light beams, such as spatially structured and spatiotemporal structured beams. Therefore, it provides a comprehensive overview of the generated structured beams, along with a discussion and outlook on the future development direction of structured beams.