What the proportion is doing
These pieces run around 2 3/4 by 9 3/4 inches, which is a brick face: roughly three and a half times as long as it is high, much more elongated than any subway format.
That ratio is the whole recognition. A wall reads as brick because of the proportion and the offset course pattern long before anybody registers the material, which is why a thin brick works as masonry and a 4x12 tile does not.
These are glazed, which real brick is not
Glaze is on most of it, with a leather and a textured face alongside those, and the colors run blue, red, green, gray and brown.
A structural brick takes its color from the clay and the kiln, which is why brick walls are red, buff and brown and very little else. Once the piece stops carrying load it can be glazed, and a glazed thin brick can be any color at all. The blues on this page are the clearest sign that this is a tile pretending to be masonry rather than masonry cut thin.
Three quarters of an inch
Most of this range is 3/4 inch thick, with one thinner piece, which is double an ordinary wall tile.
The depth is not structural, since nothing is resting on it. It is there so the face has enough material behind it to survive being handled and so the piece sits with the substance a brick course has. It also means a thin brick wall stands noticeably proud of any tiling next to it.
The bond is half the result
A brick proportion almost demands a running bond, where each course is offset by half a piece, because that is what brickwork looks like.
Stack bond, with the joints lining up, produces a grid that reads as tile immediately and loses the reference. A herringbone or a basket weave in brick proportion reads as a paved surface rather than a wall. The proportion sets up the expectation and the bond either confirms it or breaks it deliberately.
The joint matters more than usual
Brickwork has a wide mortar joint, far wider than a tiled wall normally carries, and that joint is part of what the eye is recognizing.
A thin brick set with a tight tile joint stops reading as brick and starts reading as a long narrow tile. A wider joint in a mortar color keeps the reference intact. It is the cheapest decision on the wall and the one that decides whether the whole thing works.
The eight series here are eight colors
Every piece in this small range carries a different series name, which is unusual: most tile ranges give one series several colors.
It happens because a thin brick range is a color collection rather than a product line. The format is fixed, the proportion is fixed and the thickness is fixed, so the only thing left to name is the glaze. Choosing from this page is choosing a color and nothing else.
Where thin brick goes
A kitchen backsplash, a fireplace breast, a bar front, a feature wall, an entry and the wall behind a range. It suits a room that wants the texture and weight of masonry where a real brick wall is neither possible nor wanted.
Backsplash tile carries the other formats, terracotta tile the unglazed clay end, and ledger panel the stone version of a textured wall.
