Why large formats matter on a strong color
24x48 leads the size list here, then 12x24, with 8x8, 24x24, 18x36 and narrow 2x18, 2 1/2x10 and 3x12 pieces behind them.
A strong color broken into small pieces with joint between them softens into texture. The same color as a large uninterrupted plane is a completely different proposition, and until porcelain there was no way to have it. Blue tile and mosaic has the small format half.
Two kinds of blue on one page
Part of this range is bluestone look: a printed northeastern paving sandstone that is blue-gray rather than blue, and carries names like blue select and thermal blue select from the quarry trade.
The rest is decorative: pattern series and solid blues in resin, stone, marble and zellige look faces. Those two halves have nothing to do with each other, and a search for a blue room wants the second.
Matte carries it
Matte leads the finishes, with polished, anti-slip and glossy groups behind it.
On a large format in a strong color that is the sensible order. A polished blue at 24x48 is a mirror in a color, which is a very specific thing to want; a matte blue of the same size is a wall or a floor that happens to be blue. The anti-slip pieces belong to the paving-oriented end of the range.
Shade variation runs high for a made material
The pieces here that publish a figure sit at V3 and V4, which is moderate to substantial, and that is unusual for a manufactured color.
It follows from what the prints are copying. A bluestone is a sedimentary rock with banding and iron staining through it, and a print reproducing that honestly has to vary from piece to piece. A flat blue glaze would be V1; these are imitating stone.
Why blue is rare in tile at all
Blue is uncommon across the catalog and the reason is the materials. Stone takes its color from minerals that were present when it formed, and the ones producing blue are scarce in the settings where building stone forms.
A fired or printed tile has no such limit: a glaze or a digital print can be any color at all. So blue in porcelain is a straightforward decision where blue in stone is an accident of geology, and that is why a porcelain range can offer the color across five sizes while the stone pages carry a handful of pieces.
The decorative series
Several series here are pattern ranges rather than plain colors, carrying repeating geometric figures in blue and white.
Those descend from painted and encaustic tile traditions, and on a porcelain body they go places the originals could not: a floor, a shower, a commercial space. Patterned backsplash tile has the handmade versions of the same idea.
Where blue porcelain goes
A bathroom floor and wall, a kitchen, a laundry, a terrace in the paving-oriented pieces and a feature wall anywhere.
Porcelain tile is the material across every color and blue backsplash tile the kitchen wall.
