Geometric Design

Tessellations are patterns resulting from arranging, or tiling, shapes without any gaps. They can be made by positioning the same shape with one of these three operations:

• translation

• rotation

• reflection

Translation can be thought of as sliding the shape along a plane. This is the type of tessellation you can make easily with a sticky note (as shown below). Rotation tessellations are accomplished by (you guessed it!) rotating the tessellated shape. Reflection tessellations are mirrored. You can also create complex tessellations by combining multiple operations.