The Spanish Tile Manufacturer's Association (ASCER) promotes Spanish ceramic tile in North America as Tile of Spain. I was the fortunate recipient of a trip to Spain last week to get to know the Spanish tile industry, Spanish culture and the Spanish people. My trip was built around my attending Cevisama, the Spanish tile, stone and bath trade show.

Cevisama was an enormous show, easily the largest tile trade show I've ever attended. The facility where it was held, the Feria Valencia, was an amazement.

As I walked the show floor and toured the booths I saw a number of overriding trends, many of which will end up on this side of the Atlantic eventually. Tile is the default material for much of the world though it's certainly not in North America and that's unfortunate. It's a great material and I learned more about it in Spain than I ever thought there was to know.



The big news from Spain is that the Spanish have mastered the art of digital printing on tile. The tile above isn't the banded calcite it appears to be. That is a pattern printed on a ceramic tile. The printing was so clear I could swear I saw the saw marks from a stone saw on that tile.

The Spanish use tile in innovative ways.

To read the rest of Paul’s blog post and view more images, visithere.