Light and water move in very similar ways. It’s not surprising then that the methods we use to control them are often similar.

A wave is a pattern. It can easily be disrupted with another conflicting pattern – like a matt surface, or a rough texture. It’s something that we put to good use in sea defences, and on the inside of envelopes.

I’ve been looking at repetitive patterns like this recently and am going to be working on a project to compile groups of them wherever I find them.

You can see the full set of defence pattern matches here.