It is one of the joys of being a roving reporter at international tile trade shows like Cevisama that you are not constrained by the same business imperatives that tend to restrict the visiting experience for retailers and distributors.
Freed from having to visit existing or prospective suppliers, or a schedule of pre-arranged meetings, I am free to roam the halls, visiting each and every stand in search of new designs and technical innovations.
If is fair to say that, at most shows, the majority of true innovations and on-trend designs are shown by the usual suspects: the ‘A’ list, if you will.
However, it is also true that most exhibitions throw up a company that has kept below Tile Addict’s radar that seems suddenly infused with new life and rediscovered creativity. Sometimes this is because a new management team has changed the focus from the domestic to the export market. Or it may be that a commission to design and deliver a new range for a large retailer has sparked new lines of design research, resulting in a flowering of new products.
It can also be due to a failure to follow the prevalent design trends, either by oversight or intention, that results in a particular manufacturer suddenly standing out from the crowd.
Now I don’t which, if any, of these factors are at play at Hispania Ceramica, but Cersaie 2017 certainly saw this Spanish factory fighting above its weigh in the design ring.
One reason why Hispania stood out from the crowd was that it concentrated on just two formats: 200 by 600mm wall tiles and 450 by 450mm floor tiles. This gave the exhibition stand a great sense of cohesion; and projected a feeling that that the company really knew where it was heading with its new designs.
At the same time the revised collection explores tone, texture, shape, pattern and combinations of the above in a very structured and coherent manner. The new designs seem edgy yet commercial; avant garde but not extreme; contemporary but not shocking.
If you want to find out more about the designs feature here, there are two easily downloadable PDF brochures on the Hispania website – one covering Cevisama 2017 and one Novedades (new items) – as listed below.
There will also be more coverage of Hispania, and other Spanish manufacturers’ latest product innovations, in the April edition of Tile & Stone Journal and on the publication’s website.
A new post by Joe Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, March 2017.