Glass and Mosaic Tile Trends
Feras Irikat of Lunada Bay discusses Glass and Mosaic Tile Trends he is seeing in the industry.
Lunada Bay Tile creates handcrafted glass, ceramic, concrete and stone tiles with an emphasis on artistic simplicity, texture and color. Feras Irikat, the tile manufacturer’s director of design and marketing, sat down with TILE to talk about the different trends he is seeing in decorative tile.
“Decorative tile is basically anything that adds sort of a sculptural element,” said. Irikat. “A unique element that sometimes creates a focal point in a space. But it does not really have the functional aspect of it. It's there to look pretty. Glass tile is actually both. It has the functional aspect, and it can be as simple as a very sort of subdued understated installation, but also can be presented in a focal point as a highly decorative sculptural tile. So those two kind of things are different, and a decorative style can be in any medium. Once you know a trend hits, it actually becomes what we call ‘mainstream.’ It basically becomes the dominating design trend. Using this type of material or medium.”
Irikat discussed how since the pandemic design has become super fluid and how trends are focusing more on creating an experience and an emotional relationship to the space. “There's two different things,” said Irikat. “One: the tile medium is one of those amazing mediums that I really get, but the fact that it has to look beautiful. It has to deliver a high aesthetic value to the space, and the environment has to connect emotionally to the audience. At the same time, it has a technical functional aspect to deliver. The technical aspect and this beautiful, gorgeous design have to be married, and they have to equally deliver on both parts, which is difficult to do. I think one of the most unique installations would be something where you are taking a bunch of different elements and materials and you are combining them to create one visual effect.”
According to Irikat, people used to just see tile has a functional aspect of their lives they had to fulfill. But now it is being used a lot more for its design aspects.
“Now, I think our designers and our community, and also the end consumers, are getting a lot more savvy as far as understanding the design world altogether,” said Irikat. “That's due to the access to the Internet and access to all these amazing websites that give them a little look into what you can do with this medium.”
