Hasta La Ideas

Tiny dimples and raised dots cover these ceramic tiles by French designers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.

Designed for Italian brand Mutina, the Pico collection comes in white, grey, sand, red or blue and can have spots of colour applied to the little hollows.

The material’s slightly irregular texture and matte surface references earth floors and cement, revealing the compressed particles of sand and minerals. See more tiles and all our stories about ceramics here.

Mutina will present Pico in Bologna this September. See more stories about Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec here.

Here are some more details from Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec:

We are pleased to present the new ceramic collection Pico, designed for the Italian brand Mutina.

While in recent years tiling mainly produced icy surfaces hiding the material depth, Pico focuses on revealing the matter as a substance itself – the compressed sand and minerals that constitute ceramic tiles. We intended to maintain the raw aspect of traditional earth floors or handmade cement, letting the material convey its natural characteristics.

The collection comes in three differently coloured bases (white, grey and sand), composed of specific mineral mixtures that produce surfaces with a real material depth. The subtly composed shades have a matt finish with a sensual surface feel. Together with its slightly irregular dotted texture Pico produces gentle surfaces that stand in contrast with the extreme brightness and slickness of today’s coating materials.

In this collection we have worked on defining a regular-irregular texture, the result is the declension of two relief surfaces: “Down” with sunken dots and “Up” with elevated dots. Both reliefs are available in their natural, monochrome base colours: “blanc,” “gris” and “terre”.

Furthermore, to add dynamics, we also decided to use two tones of colour, red and blue, applied as little dots in the hollow or as a base colour. The use of colours activates the relief by creating delicate shadows, turning the tiles a nuance colder or warmer.

We wanted to use the ceramic material in a very flexible way consequently the Pico collection is equally adapted for use in public spaces (airports, restaurants) as for use in domestic spaces (indoors and outdoors).

Pico collection will be presented during the fair Cersaie in Bologna, Italy from September 20th to September 24th 2011. Pavilion 22 A218 – B209.

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