I like creating a single block and tiling it to see new designs emerge. But sometimes the secondary designs aren’t quite what I’m after…

In this design, the vertices between the blocks form the centre of a left-handed tetraskelion, also called a sauwastika. Although this bent-legged cross has been a sacred religious symbol for thousands of years, the right-handed version – the swastika – is now inextricably linked to Nazism and the Holocaust. It’s not something I want to include in my designs – even inadvertently.

My sketchbooks are full of designs that don’t quite make it, for one reason or another. This is one of those times. I still like the underlying premise of this design, but I’ll continue working on it until I can create a tiled version that makes me happy.