Color is why this material exists in mosaic
White, gray and beige lead here as they do everywhere, but blue is the fourth largest group and green, black and brown all appear in quantity.
None of those is available from a quarry at mosaic scale in any useful volume. A glaze can be mixed to any color and reproduced exactly batch after batch, which is the whole reason a colored mosaic wall is a ceramic wall. Stone mosaic tile is the other half of the material question.
Glossy, by a long way
Glossy accounts for the bulk of the range, with matte and a small satin group behind it.
That ratio is the reverse of a stone mosaic page, where polished and honed sit closer together. A glaze is glass, and glass comes out of the kiln shiny unless something is done to stop it, so gloss is the default state of the material rather than a choice made against an alternative.
The formats run long, not square
4x12 is the largest size group here, then 12x12, 16x48, 12x24, 3x12, 2x2, 2x10 and a 5/8x6 pencil liner.
That is not a chip list. A great deal of ceramic mosaic is mesh-mounted elongated pieces rather than small squares, and the offset between courses is already fixed at the factory, so a wall of it reads as laid subway even though it went up a sheet at a time.
The 2x2 and the pencil
At the other end sit true chip sheets at 2x2 and narrow 5/8x6 pencil liners.
A 2x2 ceramic sheet is about as quiet as a tiled surface gets and it is the usual answer for a shower pan in a glazed material. A pencil liner is a line rather than a field: a cap where tiling stops, a division between two areas, or a border around a panel.
Thickness, and where a ceramic sheet meets stone
The thickness figures here run from 15/64 of an inch up to 0.42, clustering around 0.31 and 0.25, which is thinner than the 3/8 inch a stone mosaic uses.
That gap is the thing to settle whenever a ceramic band runs inside a stone or porcelain field, which is one of the commonest uses for a colored sheet. The two will not finish flush on their own, and the difference is resolved in the bed underneath rather than at the surface.
Shade variation splits in two
The variation figures here cluster at two ends: a large group at V2, meaning slight, and an equally large group rated high.
That split is the two kinds of product on the page. A plain glazed color is consistent by nature and sits at V2. The blended and handmade-look ranges are deliberately varied and sit at the high end. The figure on the listing tells you which kind a sheet is before the photograph does.
The 16x48 sheets are panels
A group here is supplied at 16x48, which is not a mosaic size in any ordinary sense: it is a panel nearly four feet long carrying many small pieces on one backing.
Those exist because the labor in a mosaic wall is the number of units handled, not the number of pieces in it. A four foot panel puts the same small-piece surface up in a fraction of the movements, which is why they turn up in commercial work and in large bathroom walls rather than in a domestic backsplash.
A ceramic body is a wall body
Ceramic has an open body and carries its color in a glazed layer on the face, which is the right build for a wall and the wrong one for a floor.
Whether a given sheet is published for floor use is on its product page, and in this material most are not. Ceramic tile sets out the body properly and mosaic floor tile gathers the sheets that are rated to be walked on.
Where ceramic mosaic goes
A kitchen backsplash, a bathroom wall, a shower wall, a bath surround, a laundry and a band set into another material.
It is the material to reach for when the wall is supposed to be a color rather than a stone. Mosaic tile reaches the sheets made from other materials.
