Crackle and a blue glaze
A crackled glaze is one fired so that its surface develops a network of fine hairline cracks, and it is a deliberate effect with a very long history in wall tile.
Blue is where it does the most work. Each crack catches the glaze at a slightly different depth, so a single crackled blue tile carries several blues at once, and a wall of them never reads as one flat color. On a beige or a white the same effect is far harder to see.
Sheets outnumber field tile here
Mosaic sheets are the largest product type on this page, ahead of field tile, which is unusual for a color that also has plenty of subway formats available.
It follows from how people use a strong color. A sheet breaks a blue into many small pieces with joint between them, so the color softens and reads as texture; a wall of 4x12 subway in the same blue is a far more assertive thing. The sheet is the cautious route into a colored backsplash.
The three materials make three blues
Porcelain leads the materials, then ceramic and glass, with a little marble behind them.
A glazed blue is a recipe and can be matched exactly to something else in the kitchen. A glass blue has light passing through the body, which gives it a depth no glaze reaches. A porcelain blue sits between the two and comes in the largest formats. They rarely sit well together on one wall. Blue tile and mosaic holds the color across the catalog.
Bluestone look on a kitchen wall
Among them is a small bluestone look group, which is a printed northeastern paving sandstone: cool, blue-gray and fine grained rather than blue in any ordinary sense.
It is included because the tag says blue and it belongs to a different idea entirely. On a backsplash it reads as a quiet gray stone, which is worth knowing if the search that brought you here was for a blue kitchen.
Leather, satin and the rest
Glossy carries this range, then matte, with crackled, anti-slip, polished, leather, satin and textured faces behind them.
Leather is the surprise on a colored backsplash: a brushed low-sheen face with texture left in it, normally seen on dark stone. On a deep blue it gives a wall that changes with the light without the mirror a gloss produces.
The formats and the height of the band
3x12 leads the sizes, then 12x12 sheets, 2x6, 4x12, 12x24, 3x6, 4x8 and 6x6, with a 24x48 among the larger pieces.
The counter to cabinet gap is around 18 inches, and a three inch tile divides it into six courses without a cut where a four inch tile leaves half a course over. On a strong color that remainder is more visible than it would be on a white, because the eye is already following the wall.
Where a blue backsplash works
A kitchen, a bar, a utility room, a bathroom wall and a panel behind a range. Blue sits well with warm wood, brass and cream, and against cool grays and chrome it needs to be a deeper or greener blue to avoid reading cold.
Backsplash tile carries every other color for the wall, and green backsplash tile the neighboring one.
