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Coverings 2019: Color and graphics along with concrete and terrazzo were centerstage - May 2019
The 30th annual Coverings, North America's largest tile and stone exhibition, took place from April 9 to 12 in Orlando, Florida. The event, which commemorated its 1989 launch with music and a historical timeline, attracted 27,000 attendees, an increase from the previous year. It was sponsored by key industry organizations including Ceramics of Italy, the Tile Council of North America (TCNA), Tile of Spain, the Ceramic Tile Distributors Association, and the National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA). Coverings primarily caters to distributors, offering insights into emerging tile trends and innovations, alongside educational sessions on topics such as tariffs, e-commerce, and technology in retail. Specialized lectures and hands-on demonstrations were also provided in the Installation & Design Experience booth, covering subjects like substrate preparation and techniques for large-format plank and gauged porcelain tiles.
A prominent trend observed at the show was the continued popularity of encaustic tiles, featuring both antique and modern motifs. Wood-look planks were showcased with bolder, contrasting shading. For larger format rectangles, industrial concrete and terrazzo aesthetics dominated, offering a practical and cost-effective alternative to poured floors. Ryan Fasan, a consultant for Tile of Spain, highlighted vibrant colors and "supergraphics" as significant trends. Blue emerged as a particularly hot hue, appearing in various textures and finishes. Florim's Onyx collection, for instance, presented a blue marble look with deep grey veining and subtle gold accents, creating a 3D effect. Marca Corona’s Ossidi line introduced high-gloss deep blue and white diamond-shaped tiles, providing design flexibility. Florim’s Flor Gres commercial brand displayed a wide color palette, including blues and oranges, with yellows and oranges also utilized in graphic tiles as accents or standalone features. Somertile offered a vibrant orange solid tile, Twist Square Orange Sunset, while Oceanside Glass & Tile’s Zoetic collection blended blues, yellows, and oranges in a lustrous peacock feather-like design. The return of black was evident in dark marble and stone tile looks, often with gold veining, exemplified by American Olean's matte black diamond-shaped tile in its NeoConcrete collection and Marazzi's solid charcoal and medium black tiles in the Basalto collection.
Graphics played a more significant role this year, featuring nature-inspired murals and bold designs. Somertile showcased comic book graphics and street graffiti patterns. Cotto D’Este presented a "functional flora" trend with its forest mural large-format tile, Dream, while Veromar offered luxury tiles with intricate geometric and floral graphics in gold, black, and antique white. Wood looks expanded into "wild woods," displaying variations in species and combinations of different types. Vitromex’s Barque collection mixed light and dark planks resembling various wood species, and Florida Tile’s Excursion collection integrated multiple species within each plank for a textured visual. Tile scales also varied, with larger formats used for walls and smaller ones for floors, and a resurgence of the square format. Rhombus and other geometric shapes were replacing hexagons, and Crossville introduced unique dog-shaped tiles. Coverings continued its community service initiatives, partnering with Clean the World to assemble hygiene kits for veterans and collaborating with Habitat for Humanity and Freeman to donate unused tile and stone products. The TCNA and its members also supported Orlando-area pets through their tiled doghouse program.
Producer highlights included Crossville’s Escher-themed booth, emphasizing repeating patterns and showcasing new slab countertops and the Alaska terrazzo-look line. Marazzi introduced the Historia antique marble-look collection with half-hex tiles and the monochromatic Basalto line, suitable for outdoor pavers. American Olean presented Ideology, a white marble-look tile, and NeoConcrete, a concrete-look indoor/outdoor tile with subtle movement and 3D cube patterns, both featuring StepWise slip-resistant technology. Ragno, celebrating 70 years, featured Romantic Marble for both residential and commercial markets and ConKreto, a concrete-look floor tile. Florida Tile introduced Modtique, a collection with subtle wear, and Excursion, a National Park-themed porcelain wood-look tile blending different species. American Wonder Porcelain showcased new products like Biancatto Porcelain (travertine look), Avaro Forest Porcelain (wood-cement mix), and Bravado Porcelain (metal and cement blend). Stonepeak expanded its Plane 2.0 collection with new colors like Avalanche (white marble-look) and introduced Imperial Stone, a lightly veined marble look. Stonepeak’s Design Your Slab (DYS) program offered customizable wall applications with any image on porcelain slabs, which can be integrated into their Ventilated Facade System to reduce energy costs. Florim USA focused on its Milestone brand, offering 2cm pavers with recycled content, and showcased Erfoud Stone (fossilized marble look) and Onyx (rectified color body porcelain). Atlas Concorde USA collaborated with designer Laurie Smith on the Mood collection, offering diverse wall and floor tiles and a cut-to-order option. Landmark Ceramics, an Italian company with a U.S. facility, presented Charme Evo marble-look tile, Grace travertine-look tile, and Infinity limestone-look tile. Del Conca featured Amsterdam, a wood-look collection with realistic graining, Neopolis for floor and wall applications, and Stelvio, a versatile indoor/outdoor terrazzo-look tile.
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