Tile School: Commercial Custom Process

Working on a commercial project and interested in creating something custom? We've got you covered. From commercial grade finishes to a custom color or shape, we're walking you through our commercial capabilities on today's blog.

Tile Shown: Our Glazed Thin Brick in a blend of standard and custom glazes. Design: David Baker Architects // Image: Patricia Chang

Handmade to Order
All of our tile is handmade to order and we have a breadth of styles, materials and finishes that meet commercial demands. We think of customization in five tiers. No matter which tier you are starting at, it's important that we have a clear understanding of your goal, as we know that this is an investment to a main focal point in your design and want to help you bring your vision to life.

First, here's a peak inside our innovation lab, where the custom magic happens:

Tier One:
We consider all of our tile as custom, as it is handmade to order. Tier One is selecting from any of our standard offering of Tile, Brick, Handpainted or Glass. We do offer complimentary design services that include 3D renderings that can be incredibly helpful, as well as customization of any of our handpainted tiles.

This hotel bathroom features one of our standard glazes:

Tile Shown: Pickets in Celadon // Design: Arcsine // Image: Paul Dyer

These tiled stairs were customized:

Tile Shown: Handpainted Vigo + Avila // Design: Sara Combs and Rich Combs // Image: Margaret Austin

Applied with a warm custom colorway with our Color-It Tool, this dining room's handpainted floor tile grounds every gathering with its down-to-earth half-moons.

Tile Shown: Handpainted Fallow// Design: Sara Combs and Rich Combs // Image: Margaret Austin

Tier Two: Standard Glaze on an alternate material
The next level of customization is where we put a standard glaze on an alternate material. For example, we'll often get requests for one of our Tile colors to be placed on our Glazed Thin Brick.

This standout brunch spot Morning Glory is vibrantly clad with custom pinks, as well as Evergreen (one of our beloved tile colors) on Glazed Thin Brick.

Tile Shown: Evergreen on Glazed Thin Brick with custom Pinks // Design: Basile Studio // Image: Haley Hill Photography

Tier Three: Mosaics
We can sheet custom mosaics for both residential and commercial space, but the commercial ones tend to be a bit more complex and involve a lot more mapping and strategy.

With over 5000SF of 2x2 tiles in a rainbow of custom colors, Salesforce East in San Francisco was an incredible project where we worked closely with the designers at Gensler, along with Salesforce and our incredible mosaic and production teams to bring their vision to life:

Tile Shown: 2x2 Mosaic Tiles in a custom pattern // Design: Gensler // Artist: Shinji Murakami // Image: Patricia Chang

Tier Four: Custom Development
This tier includes both changing the finish or a glaze or the creation of a custom hand painted pattern.

For the restaurant below, we changed some of our existing gloss glazes to a matte finish and added abrasive to meet high traffic commercial floor standards:

Tile Shown: 6" Triangles in custom colors // Design: DUST & Co. // Image: Bethany Nauert

The Perennial's owners chose our elegant Wave pattern for the entryway, collaborating with our designers to develop a rustic custom color blend:

Tile Shown: Wave in a custom glaze in a San Francisco restaurant's entryway

Tier Five: Custom Development, Part II
This level of customization includes developing a brand new glaze color or a new shape.For color development, this usually begins with a Pantone color reference that our glaze master will work to get the closest match.

For Jayde's Market, we worked with the designers to develop a custom green:

Tile Shown: 2x8 tiles in a custom green // Design + Images: Project M Plus

With custom color development, we have to talk about Salesforce East again. This spectrum of colors was developed by in colorist in partnership with our glaze master:

Tile Shown: 2x2 Mosaic Tiles in a custom pattern // Design: Gensler // Artist: Shinji Murakami // Image: Patricia Chang

We can also work on creating a custom shape for your project. This involves creating a new cutter for the shape. For this Arthur Mac's, we created this custom chevron shape for their floor tile:

Tile Shown: Custom Chevron shape in custom colors // Design: Bcooperative

Fireclay's commercial team worked closely with Studios Architecture to create custom ceramic tile walls for this prominent law firm. Employees and visitors are welcomed by a vibrant color blend on custom 3x18 ceramic tiles. (If you want a similar standard offering, we do have a 3x12 size)!

Tile Shown: Custom 3x18 tiles in a blend of custom colors + Tiki Blue and Neptune // Design: Studios Architecture // Image: Magda Biernat

Here is another wall in standard and custom yellows in the custom 3x18 size:

Tile Shown: Custom 3x18 tiles in a blend of custom colors + Daffodil and Tuolumne Meadows // Design: Studios Architecture // Image: Magda Biernat

Working on a commercial project that requires some customization? Get in touch, we're here to help!