I can’t believe that we’re a week into October already! I’m starting to organise the house for Christmas (will I peak too early again this year?) and the interiors world has just been flooded with so, so many covetable design launches for the new season. I’m sure it must be pretty widely accepted by now that encaustic patterned tiles are well assured a place within the lexicon of modern British style (my bathroom makeover using them for example has been well and away my most successful post of the year). Well if you agree with this statement, then you probably know who Bert & May are, they have been on my radar for the last 18 months as a company that produce truly beautiful (slightly out of my budget) encaustic tiles. If you like your interiors bold, distinct, with a dash of geometric and primary colours against monochrome then you probably also know the work of fantastic design firm Darkroom who sadly closed the doors on their Bloomsbury store earlier in the year to concentrate on new ventures and their online business. Reading between the lines, you may note that Darkroom having brought some of the original character to this corner of Bloomsbury were forced out by rent hikes which brings me back to my thoughts on gentrification in last weeks post! I was really sad to see Darkroom go, but also wildly excited when I first heard a few months back that they were collaborating with Bert & May for the London Design Festival on a new range of tiles, fabric and paint.

Image: Design Soda

Skip forward to the end of September and I went to see if my expectations lived up the the reality on Bert’s Barge on Vyner St in Hackney where the collaboration was being showcased. The design credentials are perfect, mixing Darkroom’s bold design instinct and signature style with Bert & May’s exceptional craftsmanship, this is a real wow range. I am so very in love with the tiles, in my dreams I would use them outdoors in a courtyard garden area both walls and floor, could you imagine? So striking and seriously cool.

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Image: Design Soda

The range, called Split Shift, is described as a celebration of simple shapes – the square, circle and triangle, using monochrome with a few pops of yellow and blue. Made using hand poured ceramic and then painted, each tile contains a half shape which can be placed next to its matching shape to complete a uniform pattern or randomly to produce a more abstract effect. I love them in their abstract form and I’m most persuaded by the monochrome colour way, but I think a uniform set in blue and white could look pretty cool too. What would you choose?

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Image: Design Soda

On top of the tiles, there is a new all black paint colour and also some pretty cool fabrics, some of which you can see in the bedroom of Bert’s barge above. I really like their simplicity, the paring back of design to basics is such a winner, used on a set of roman blinds in a Scandi interior they would be showstopping-ly in their element. You can view the products in situ on Bert’s barge up until Christmas and purchase the products online here.

Images: Design Soda