Square tiles are all well and good. So are metros, hexagons, fishscales, picket and arabesque tiles, star and cross combos, triangles, diamonds, and circle tiles. But when you’re a tile addict, everything looks like tiles, everything can be tiles. You see a cake and you think it’s a tile, you see a pair of socks and know a tile that matches them perfectly, or you see a mushroom and imagine all the ways it could be translated to tile. Nothing is safe from the mind of a tile addict. So today we embrace that, with this curious selection of things that would make really cool tiles.
1) Interlocking animals
Italian modernist artist Enzo Mari’s iconic interlocking menagerie was first created in 1957 for design company Danese Milano. Featuring 16 animals including an elephant, a snake, a pig, a camel, and a kangaroo, this puzzle is striking design in the form of a children’s toy. In honour of Mari’s 16 animals, Design Musuem reinterpreted the shapes into edible art, creating each creature as a glazed biscuit. But these aren’t the only glazed biscuits worth considering.
2) Scrabble Tiles
They’ve already got the name, but if you’re hoping to decorate with Scrabble tiles, you’d be hard pressed to find a ceramic version. For lovers of the game, embracers of whimsy, for children’s play areas, games rooms, or more, a fully functional letter system would make some lovely tiles.
3) M.C. Escher
Escher was a master of illusion, with stairways always leading up, impossible interiors, and distorted perspectives. But his symmetry works, much like the menagerie of Mari, is a perfect hub of inspiration for tile design. Perfectly fitting fish, foxes, lizards, leaves, horsemen, and swans create striking, endless images that seem almost made to be transformed into tiles. Already existing in puzzle form, such as these laser cut pieces from Martin Raynsford, I think it’s time they became tile.
4) The Art of Cynthia Consentino
Wildly whimsical and full of fun, the characterful sculptures of American artist Cynthia Consentino busy the mind with exaggerated forms and curious compositions. Interlocking heads performing a spiderman kiss, reimagined iconography, and surreal depictions of humans and hybrids offer a world of wonder to tile through both shape and subject.
Is there anything you’d add to this this?
A new post by Hanna Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, March 2025.