2 1/2 by 10 is not a zellige size
A traditional zellige is a small square, around four inches. This range is a narrow elongated piece at two and a half by ten.
That is a modern wall proportion carrying a hand made face, which is the honest position for a printed zellige to take. Copying the square as well as the surface would invite a direct comparison the tile cannot win; changing the format moves the argument to ground it can hold.
What a printed zellige gets right
The glaze effects transfer well. Pooling in the hollows, thinning at the high points, drift in tone from one piece to the next and a fine crackle can all be built into a glaze accurately.
Those are surface phenomena and a press with a digital printer handles surface phenomena convincingly. From more than a few feet the face is difficult to separate from a hand made one. Zellige look tile sets out the effect in full and zellige tile is the hand made material.
Polished, which is unusual for the effect
Every piece here is polished, where most zellige look ranges run glossy or matte.
A real zellige is glossy because its glaze is thick and mobile, and a polish is a different thing again: a ground surface rather than a glaze that cooled shiny. What it produces is a flatter, more even reflection than a hand made tile gives, which is the point at which the imitation stops and the porcelain shows through.
The trim comes with it
A molding sits in this small range alongside the field tile.
That is something a hand made zellige rarely offers, since trim in a hand cut material means cutting and glazing small pieces one at a time. A printed range makes the trim on the same line, so an edge can be finished in the same face rather than with a metal profile.
Gray and beige
Three grays and a beige make up the colors here.
That is a narrower and cooler palette than a hand made zellige range carries, where greens, blues and whites lead. It suits what the format is doing: a modern elongated piece in a neutral, with the hand made character supplied by the face rather than by the color.
The joint carries the rest of it
Because a printed zellige arrives perfectly square, the joint is the one place irregularity can still be introduced.
A tight even joint gives the machine away immediately, since a hand made wall never has one. A slightly wider joint in a color close to the tile lets the courses read as less regular than they are, and on an elongated format it is the single thing that most separates a convincing wall from a flat one.
Where it belongs
A kitchen backsplash, a bathroom wall, a shower wall and a feature panel.
It is the version of the look for a surface that has to be flat, consistent and finished at the edges, which a hand made zellige is not. Ceramic tile covers the machine made material in full.
