Crossville is your source for the latest trends impacting the world of design and the tile industry at large. From the recent Global Tile Trends presentation as part of Coverings Connected to our just-published Design Look Book 2020, we are bringing you the most current, relevant information and inspiration. Here’s an overview to help you put all the great content in context.
Crossville’s Vice President of Marketing Lindsey Waldrep delivered a feature presentation as part of this year’s Coverings Connected. For this annual review, Lindsey provided the North America viewpoint alongside industry leaders from Italy and Spain who rounded out the macro look at global tile trends. This world-wide perspective helps all those who specify, sell, and participate in the creation of tile recognize design’s expansive impact versus local viewpoints.
Looking at modern design and fashion, Lindsey identified this year’s four focus areas for global tile trends: Mindfully Modern, Sophisticated Shapes, Greek Revival, and Rural Chic.
Global Tile Trends Focus Areas
Mindfully Modern nods to mid-century inspired forms and traditional materials with an eco-friendly vibe. Divergent textures of woodgrain, natural stone, concrete, and handmade low gloss ceramics bring purposeful polarity to any space.
The trend of Sophisticated Shapes leans into the beauty of design through arches, circles, pastels, metals, woods, and even chalk to create a sophisticated and welcoming look for your next project.
Fluting, marble, symmetry, and other classical details such as veining, linear textures, and ribbed wall tiles all play critical roles in the Greek Revival trend that brings design from a bygone era to the forefront of the 21st century.
Rural Chic is a trend that puts a touch of glam on rustic ethos. Wicker, rattan, and caning create highly visual texture; brushed metal makes an impact; pattern tiles get bolder while natural finishes heat up; and color overall plays an increased role in any space.
Watch the Global Tile Trends video presentation via Coverings Connected, here. Note that we’ve included the transcript of Lindsey’s portion of the panel discussion at the end of this blog.
The Global Trends—with a Crossville Twist:
In our 2020 Design Look Book, we explore each of these focus areas through the lens of Crossville collections. We identify coordinating tile options for each of the trends, making the Look Book a tremendous digital reference tool offered. We’ve included two versions of the Look Book in our Virtually Crossville content. View a narrated version to hear Lindsey explain the background and products for each of the trends, and click to flip through the digital publication at your own pace.
TRANSCRIPT: Global Tile Trends Presentation 2020 presented by Lindsey Waldrep
Thank you for joining us today for the 2020 global tile trends presentation. As part of Coverings Connected this presentation is being prerecorded. Our three presenters each bring a unique view to the world of tile, and we’re so pleased they could join us today to discuss this important topic.
Hi, I’m Lindsey Ann Waldrep, and thank you for joining us today. I’m the vice president of marketing for Crossville, and I’ll be here as part of the global tile trends presentation representing the Tile Council of North America.
Each year, we are delighted to discuss our tile trends with you, and it’s so wonderful that we’re being able to do this via Coverings Connect. The way that we typically do our presentation is I start with design macro trends in North America. Now, I will say that some of these trends started before our current state of being, and it’s going to be really interesting to see how the trends are affected and how they shift with our reactions to COVID-19 and social distancing. Let’s get started though with what was seen early in the trade shows towards the back half of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. Design is typically an evolution, and this year is no different.
There’s not really a whole lot that has created big, massive change in design, and yet things continue to move and evolve. One of the big things is a stark contrast in design trends. If you look on Instagram, you see a lot of discussion on maximalism versus minimalism as opposed to a more moderate transitional decor. You know, this really equates to a lot of where we are in the world, in our mindshare with these polar opposites. You can see that everywhere from fashion to politics and interiors are no different. So very clean, crisp decor versus high levels of layering and visual texture are kind of at the far ends of our scope of reference, historical reference and current state of remain balanced. But they both have equal impact, and even historical reference in anecdotes in furnishings and design are coming up-to-date with current and fresh interpretations to them.
And you’ll see that in this presentation, international influence remains very strong with experiences taking on a whole lot more emphasis than materialism. Now, this is one I’m interested to see how our COVID-19 stay-at-home mandates is effective because we were seeing this as an influence for young people. They were all about their experiences, but now we’re seeing it being cross-generational as international travel and luxury travel and experiences expand to all ages. Now with staying at home and a very home centric mindset right now, I’m curious to see if this one becomes a little armchair quarterbacking or if this kind of goes to the back burner. That’s one to watch.
Another trend is that statement walls, whether that be a gallery wall or large wallpaper or a focal wall of color, are kind of giving way to statement pieces, pieces of furniture that are larger or more unique, something very dramatic becoming a focal point in a room now.
One of the last things that I saw when I was at KBIS in particular is that tech is beginning a downslide as concerns over privacy increase. The electronic interfaces that we were seeing with home appliances really wasn’t as present at KBIS in the last showing in January compared to previous years. Some are finding these tools to be more invasive than helpful. And this lack of privacy, especially with hacking is really top of mind. We’ve had it be a very strong concern during our quarantines with some interesting things happening on public meeting sites like Zoom. So that’s going to continue to evolve probably very strongly how we let technology into our lives. So, with these kinds of key findings, I’m going to walk you through four trends that are indeed evolution of bigger things.
We’ll keep that in mind as we go. The first one is mindfully modern. It’s really a new direction taking off from farmhouse that has been with us for so long, focusing on honest, sustainability and sustainable materials. They’re seeing a lot of mid-century vibes and inspire forums come in with traditional materials to make up this ethos. It’s an interesting offshoot of the handmade or maker movement. You’re going to see a lot of Wabi Sabi embracing of imperfections, compare to more industrial farmhouse movements of the past. And as I said, you’re going to see elements of sustainability with materials having more integrity in their natural form. Take for example, natural stone or live-edge wood countertops, then you might see more synthetic or emulations. So, as we get into decor, here’s a couple of examples: the credenza that you see is from Restoration Row and what this company does is find true authentic mid-century furniture and then they freshen them up, in this case with this beautiful white outline around it. And, combined with the authentic brass in the wood to just make it not look like the Brady Bunch’s furniture, makes it fresh and contemporary now, especially when paired with minimal styling. The pottery that you see has this beautiful natural glazing to it, but they’ve left the edges raw to bring in the authenticity of the material. This one’s by KJ Pottering. You can find it on Etsy. And then Fore Hand showed at furniture market in the fall a re-interpretation of mid-century design like you can see in the table and the chairs; they’re mixing it with very authentic natural materials that don’t contain a lot of furniture. Finishes, paints, shellacs, things like that. So very authentic.
What does this look like in tile? Here’s a couple of examples. Wood still reigns supreme. It’s a staple in our tile universe and it’s a big part of this look. Natural stone and real concrete are definitely authentic choices. And then handmade local look ceramics that speak to natural tendencies such as the mosaics and the encaustic looks I’ve shown here are definitely part of this movement as well as some cottage designs coming in. So that’s where we see mindfully modern merging with tile.
The next trend, takes us even more modern and it’s sophisticated shapes. Sophisticated shapes are an evolution from the super feminine forms of millennial pinks we’ve seen prior. It’s a soft palette with curvy shapes, but it’s mixing in angular geometry and metals that feel sophisticated and welcoming. Pink hasn’t gone away, but it’s more neutral and either stronger or clay infused, and design itself is becoming a little bit more androgynous. So, these super feminine forms are giving way to something that’s a little bit more universal for masculine and feminine.
The image on the screen is from The Wing in their offices in San Francisco. Last year I showed a different office of The Wing that was New York that was much, much more feminine. So even as companies expand, as they play into design, you can kind of see how these themes shift in new evolutions of their locations. When we look at design and general and interiors, you’re going to see that arches abound everywhere. So are ellipses and circles; we really want to see this bulge geometry come to play in architectural forms with columns and curves. And then we want to see stone and concrete as strong counterpoints to softer color palettes here. So that gives you an idea of what it looks like in play. And then in tile, you can see that we have again the arch, but in a beautiful mosaic form, circles including penny rounds are coming up in this trend. Pastels are growing up. Metal tile is coming back into play. All of our wood shows up, but it’s in lighter grain. Chalky finishes are really popular in this along with concrete looks and soft veining in stone. So that is how sophisticated shape starts to make its way into tile and North America.
Now, the next trend is a bit historic, but you’re going to see references to this board with stone and some of the geometry plays in that. So, this is what we talk about with the evolution of a trend as we get into historic references; it’s all Greek to me. We’re in Greek revival mode. Traditional interiors are paying homage to the Greco Roman empire with classic details such as fleeting, more marble, symmetrical architecture. And again that geometry, it ties in beautifully with sophisticated shapes, and it’s a much more sophisticated and formal riff on that same theme.
So, even in this image, you can see that clay based pink, you can see some of the soft shapes in there, and the curves; and the chair in the background with the coffee table with the stone involved along with Greek pediments, with fluting, with the urns. So, when we break that down a little bit further, that pediment in the house to the top left is definitely Greek revival. But the lack of ornamentation on this historical house that has been redone really makes the geometry pop. The closeness chairs in the bottom left and a design by Cara Cox and then in the middle right show how that classic Greek form is evolving into a more contemporary shape but still traditional. The marbleized wallpaper in the bathroom becomes very, very bold and exaggerated as does the Greek key pattern in the bottom right and the looting.
And the fluting in both the light fixtures and the table. So, examples of those Greek themes throughout decor and tile. Marble is everywhere. Veining is everywhere, whether it’s natural stone or large porcelain panels with digital printing or even mosaics, you can see it abound and throughout everything. This linear texture and ribbed wall tile gives way to that fluting motif like Collins in Greek and Roman architecture. Small squares are showing up, whether that’s in a standard tile format or all the way down to Chiclets that remind us of the mosaics of ancient early times. And then bringing in those graphics again with another alteration of Greek key patterns are going to be very prominent as we look to freshen up this historic classic trend.
And then the last trend I have for you also is another twist on this farmhouse. You know, I think America just can’t get enough of the natural aesthetic and th farmhouse has to keep evolving. It’s not going to stay the way that it was when like Chip and Joanna Gaines burst on the scene. But it is taking twists and turns, and in this case with rural chic, you’re seeing globally glamorous materials come into the mix. This is part of that experiential movement as well. And there’s going to be small touches of international input, whether that’s actual gathered by real travel or aspirations of the future and from different indigenous groups all over the world as an appreciation, not an appropriation. In this photo on the title slide, again by Restoration Row, you can see that they’ve taken mid-century but started to apply much brighter and bolder color and a different way that becomes dominant and mixes in with Native American pottery and patterning in the handmade wood sculpture and art on the wall. So that’s one example of how something that might be considered farmhouse with the wood trenchers and the dough balls takes on this international style, again in decor.
And the photo on the left from a DVD interiors, you see this tribal inspired pattern wallpaper along with the bed linens. They’re a very traditional bed form, something historic, refreshed into this very rural sheet pattern. Woven textures are going to become very popular, a lot of wicker and things like that. As you can see in the light fixture taking us into an African inspired web and baskets as we move counter-clockwise along. And the picture with the mirror, you have this French styled beautiful antique mantle with a very traditional almost primitive carved horse. And then we throw in that Greek pattern for a more international flavor where everything starts to mix. And the next photo you see this American Indian tribal inspired sort of counter materials all made out of wood. And so the theme goes on. So in tile it gets really interesting because you’re going to start seeing a lot more texture again, that wicker, the caning that you’re starting to see are bringing in much higher visual texture, brushed metal, softer make metals are making an impact to give a little bit of that glam, but pattern tile gets even bolder and much more geographic.
And some of the encaustic historical as Layla referenced, we’ve seen in the past. Going back to natural finishes, we’re not seeing a lot of high gloss in here, but again, some of those more traditional tile finishes, but we’re seeing that mixed with some serious color. Brights are going to be in colors, gonna make an impact. This is one that I’m watching because typically in times where things are a little unstable, as they may feel that way right now, brights kind of come off of the trend and we tend to go into more neutral colors. I did ask some of our color advisers and trend researchers, have they felt brights were going to be on, do we think that movement’s going to slow down? And they said they really didn’t think so as an accent, people are looking for those moments of joy and those moments of happiness. And so I definitely think with rural chic, that’s a great place to start to bring in super saturated both colors and small touches that relate back to a world that says we’re all in this together. So those are the macro trends for tile. And with that I’m going to let Kristen take us further down the rabbit hole into what this means on a more deep level for the tile industry as a whole.
