When it comes to adding sizzle to the ceramic sausage no other tile manufacturer quite has Novoceram’s ‘je ne sais quoi.”
This design-led French manufacturer commenced production way back in 1863. In the intervening 150+ years, it has created many fabulous tiles at the base of the Drôme hills, in the village of Saint Vallier sur Rhône.
Today it is one of the leading French manufacturers and has been part of the Concorde Group since 2000. The current portfolio sees high technology combined with refinement and a unique French style: something Novoceram refers to as ‘charme céramique’.
The latest collection to emerge from this hot bed of ceramic creativity is typically ironic, irreverent, and provocative. Indigo reproduces the colours and materiality of traditional Azulejo tiles, but has completely altered their iconography to develop a mix of 63 subjects, each one seemingly having no apparent connection to another in terms of style. The collection’s eclectic references span ten centuries of history, making this one of the most pictorially-diverse tile ranges ever seen.
Made in glazed porcelain stoneware, Indigo can also be used as a floor or wall tile. As well as the decorated tiles, Indigo is also proposed as a plain base tile, without décor, in 200 by 200mm and 200 by 600mm rectified formats.
When they first order Indigo, Novoceram’s customers will find that it is fate that selects the contents of each of the collection’s boxes. Some will have a few more Little Red Riding Hoods and a fewer bespectacled dogs, but the final effect will always be perfect. And it is precisely this random distribution that will make each and every Indigo composition so unique.
Although Indigo is a random mix of 63 subjects; each tile is inspected during the production process and is guaranteed to be free of defects, although – to be quite clear – no control is possible with respect to the distribution of individual subjects in the boxes.
As a result, Novoceram does not guarantee the presence of certain subjects in the boxes, nor that there will not be one or more duplicates in the same box or in different boxes, regardless of the number of boxes purchased. However, the company is at pains to point out that the presence of such duplicates should not affect the aesthetic impact of the installation, provided that they are suitably distributed across the area to be tiled.
Like all Novoceram products, Indigo is billed as an ecological and responsible material. The company is fully committed to production solutions that are friendly to both man and nature, and now holds numerous environmental and quality certifications as evidence.
Novoceram offers a selection of tiles that complement with the Indigo range, such as the Napami and Noa wood-effect ranges, or the Cast, Geo and Jasper stone-effect ranges.
In short, Novoceram offers collections for all tastes and styles, from minimalist through to the more decorative. Time passes, elegance endures.
A new post by Joe Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, October 2017.
Yes, Indigo is a really Interesting color. That’s why it was reserved for royal families. It really makes everything pop. Carefully using it with other colors can make them pop even more.