Double-height staircase wall

Our clients were seeking to transform the hall and entrance porch of their new house with tiles. One condition of buying the house was, they told us, that the entrance wall be tiled. Initial discussions revolved around colours, designs, and how to integrate handmade, screen-printed tiles into this light, bright entrance area. Their decision was to choose the matte version of our cream base glaze, an unusual option and one we weren’t sure about at first, but it turned out that our clients had an eye for design.

Open timber staircase in front of a wall of Smink Studio screen-printed tiles in pastel blue, pink, teal and cream.

Reading corner with a teal armchair against Smink Studio glazed ceramic tiles screen-printed in pastel teal, pink and grey.

Detail of cream Smink Studio handmade tiles with screen-printed aqua and grey half-circles beside a timber handrail.

Wall of cream Smink Studio handmade tiles with screen-printed pastel shapes in teal, pink and grey, beside a staircase.

The most striking feature of the wall is its height – over 5 metres. This kind of surface area can easily become overly flat but the joy of handmade tiles is that no two are exactly alike. Every tile has subtle undulations and imperfections that bring the installation to life and show the story of the handmade production methods used to create the tiles.

Framed print leaning against Smink Studio glazed ceramic tiles with screen-printed half-circles in teal, blush and sand.

As with all projects, the first task was to select the colours and designs that would screen-printed onto the tiles. Our clients went for a soft colour palette with beach vibes and quickly settled on our Eclipse tiles in a layout that originated in this design. With relatively few iterations of the bespoke design process, we came up with the right balance of pattern and space for this situation.