Glass, marble and ceramic
Glass accounts for more of this range than any other material, with marble, ceramic and porcelain behind it and small groups of terracotta and slate after those.
Glass is a difficult material to sell in volume. It does not go underfoot, it does not come large, and it asks for a setting method of its own. What it does that nothing else does is carry color through a transparent body rather than on a printed face, so the color has depth in it and changes with the light falling on it. That is worth more on a small vertical surface, seen from close, than anywhere else in a house.
Gloss and polished finishes
Glossy is the biggest finish group here, and adding the polished products takes the reflective share to around two thirds of the range.
That is the opposite arrangement from most tile ranges, where matte leads and gloss is the minority. It follows from where these products go: gloss on a floor shows every footprint, and almost nothing here is going on a floor.
Hexagon, penny round and picket
Squares and rectangles are the bulk, as always. What sits behind them is unusual: hexagons in quantity, then penny round, herringbone, picket, basket weave, chevron and arabesque.
Close to a quarter of this range is in a shape that is neither a square nor a rectangle, which is the kind of proportion only a mosaic range reaches. The mosaic page explains why those shapes exist at small scale and not at large.
Apollo mosaic tile
Around half the products here are mosaic, and the commonest listed size is 12 by 12, which on a mosaic is the sheet rather than the pieces.
That one fact explains the shape list, the gloss share and the glass. All three are things that work at small scale on a vertical surface and stop working as a tile gets bigger or goes underfoot.
Apollo tile colors
White leads, as it does everywhere. Then blue does something it does nowhere else in this catalog: it arrives at the top alongside gray, practically level with it, with beige and black well behind and green after those.
Most tile ranges thin out sharply after the neutrals, because a colored floor is a commitment few people make. A colored mosaic on a shower niche or behind a sink is a much smaller one, and it is a decision that can be unmade. This range is built for the people making that version of it, which is why the colors carry on down past the point where other ranges stop.
Pencil trim
A group of products here is half an inch wide: pencil trim in glass and in stone, sold in packs rather than by area.
A pencil strip finishes the top edge of a tiled area, turns the corner of a niche, or draws a line between two different fields. It is a small thing that is conspicuous when it is missing, and it is the sort of piece a decorative range has to carry and a paving range does not. They come in the same glass and stone as the mosaics, so the edge can either match the field or deliberately not.
Against a matte stone range
Set this beside the Landmark Ceramics range and the two sit at opposite ends of the catalog. That one is porcelain only, matte throughout, built around pale stone looks, most of it made for outdoors. This one is glass led, gloss led and carries every shape going.
What separates them is not a difference of philosophy between two factories. It is the surface each is aimed at. A material that has to be walked on, rained on and frozen gives up gloss, color and awkward outlines to get there. A material that never leaves a wall keeps all three. Neither is a compromise, and a house often wants both.
Where Apollo tile is used
Shower niches, the strip behind a sink, a backsplash, a feature panel, a border. Small areas at eye level, seen from close, where the cost of a decorative material is bounded by how little of it is needed.
The backsplash tiles page covers the commonest of those surfaces and why it takes the products it does.
Packs, cases and coverage
The titles here carry the pack count and the case coverage in the name, which is a different convention from the rest of the catalog.
It decides the quantity, because a pack of pencil trim and a case of mosaic sheets are quite different quantities, and the figure in the title is the one that tells you which you are looking at.
