Alongside the hard-hitting big tile trends from this year’s Cevisama came a few mini trends and the first pair to explore are Illusion and Lava.

Illusion designs played with the eye – monochrome patterns with thin lines and repetitive motifs that created a sort of moiré effect when viewed from afar. The most intense examples of this are Codicer95‘s Streamline and Fisher Black Kayak tiles which cause the eye to dart all over.

A slightly less severe pattern came from Decocer‘s Coral Blue. Swirling, irregular lines in a rich sea blue travel up and down each tile. The bubbly imperfect nature of the stripes softens the effect but en masse the tiles are striking.

Two distinct tiles from Ceracasa – Couture Black and White and Deco North Gloss – finish off our first mini trend. The swirling lines of the large format Couture Black and White Gloss and the alternating stripes of Deco North Gloss each play with the eye in their own way in varying degrees of intensity.

Anybody who visited Cevisama is sure to recognise the next tile, as Vives‘ central stand with large swopping walls covered head to toe in Luca Lava was hard to ignore. Their dramatic presence led me to the next mini-trend, and I started to hunt for more lava-like tiles.

In a similar style to Luca Lava, El Molino‘s Dream Berry tiles offer up a richly visually textured tile with pockets of shadow creating a layered look to these slightly pink-toned Lava style tiles.

From the warm magma shade to the contrasting 3D textures, few things screamed lava as much as Prism Brown from Itaca. Their fabulous hexagonal shape with a raised central relief and irregular surface effects made them a treat for the senses and if they didn’t fit so perfectly into this little Lava family, they would have definitely been a Curiosity.

A new post by Hanna Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, March 2023.