Why the square survives
A 6x6 has no direction and no proportion to argue about. Laid in a grid it produces an even field with equal joints running both ways, which is the simplest thing a tiled wall can be.
That plainness is exactly why it accepts a strong glaze. A subway proportion is already doing something to a wall; a square does nothing, so whatever is on the face has the surface to itself. It is why the most colorful tile in a catalog is so often square.
This is where the color is
White is the first color and blue the second, which is unusual: blue here sits ahead of gray, ahead of beige, and well ahead of everything else on the list.
Blue at second place happens nowhere else in this catalog. It is possible because a glaze is a recipe rather than a mineral, so a ceramic can be any color and reproduce it exactly, and it happens because a wall is where people are willing to take a color they would not put on a floor.
Glossy, by a long way
Glossy leads the faces here, with matte, crackled, glazed, polished and a leather face behind it.
A glaze is glass and glass leaves the kiln shiny unless something is done to stop it, so gloss is the default state of the material. On a colored tile it also does something useful: a reflective surface gives a flat color depth it does not otherwise have.
The crackled group
A crackled group sits behind the plain glazes: glazes fired so their surfaces develop a network of fine hairline cracks.
On a colored square that is the difference between a wall that reads as painted and one that reads as tiled. The cracks catch the color at several depths, so one piece carries a range of a single hue and a wall of them never flattens out under a downlight.
Small formats throughout
6x6 leads, then 3x6, 4x8, 8x8, 4x12, 2x6, 3x12 and a 5 inch square.
Every one of those is small, and on a wall that is a choice rather than a limitation. A small tile gives a wall more joint, more repetition and more visible pattern, which is what a surface looked at from two feet away in a small room can carry.
Accent tiles and wall decos
Behind the field tile sit accent tiles, wall decos and a small decorative group, which is a larger share of the range than a floor collection carries.
Those are relief pieces, borders and panels rather than plain squares, and they exist because a wall can carry them. Relief on a floor is either uncomfortable or invisible depending how deep it is. At eye level, two feet from a person standing at a counter, it is the whole reason a wall gets looked at twice, which is why the decorative end of ceramic concentrates on walls and has done for centuries.
Thickness, and where a wall tile is thin
Almost everything here is 3/8 of an inch, with groups at 9/32, 1/4 and 15/64 behind it and a few thicker pieces.
The thin end is wall tile in the strict sense. A wall takes no load, so the only thing weight does is make the bond work harder, and a lighter tile is straightforwardly better up there. The thick pieces at 5/8 and 3/4 are the handmade and decorative ones, which had to be substantial to survive being made.
A ceramic body is a wall body
Ceramic is an unvitrified body wearing a glaze, which is the right build for a wall and the wrong one for a floor.
Most of this range runs at 3/8 of an inch with a group of thinner pieces, and whether any given tile is published for a floor is on its own product page. In this material most are not, and that is the body doing what it was made for rather than a shortcoming.
Where a ceramic wall tile goes
A kitchen backsplash, a bathroom wall, a shower wall, a powder room, a laundry and a panel behind a basin.
Backsplash tile holds every color a wall can take and ceramic mosaic tile the sheets in the same body.
