Tessellation refers to a set of geometric tiles that fit together perfectly. They can be very simple, like a checkerboard or subway tiles, or they can be delightfully intricate, like the tessellations of M.C. Escher. The fish and bird tiles shown here were designed for his house in Amsterdam.
People are still making representative tessellations like this, which is a bit easier with computer aided design. See plenty of examples at Tiled.art where artistic tessellations are animated. They go from a standard tile grid to a distorted grid to representative shapes featuring animals, people, and objects all fitting together with no gaps or overlaps. Watching these, you'll start to understand how they were designed.
And you can try it yourself! It may take a while to figure out all the tools, but once you get going, you start to understand how interlocking shapes can be created. I haven't gotten close to anything representative yet, but the further I go, the more fascinating it becomes. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: HenkvD)
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