Compass Rose, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

A compass rose is a figure on a map or nautical chart used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions. You’ll find compass roses in functional devices such as, well, compasses—but also decorative compass roses have been around since the time of the Romans. Indeed, a beautiful compass rose helps give maps their visual allure.

I made this attempt at a compass rose from seashells, primarily two sea urchins and a marine gastropod. The gastropod was flipped horizontally and vertically to create the cardinal compass points. I then assembled the shells and their rotations in Photoshop on layers.