BOLOGNA, Italy — Walking the vibrant aisles of the 43rd edition of Cersaie and gazing into the storefront windows across the historic streets of Bologna this autumn, one overarching aesthetic dominated the landscape. Warm, moody colors have firmly taken center stage in the world of architectural ceramics.
"Just like in fashion, Italian tile manufacturers debuted collections in deep burgundy, luxurious browns, earthy terracottas, and vibrant reds and yellows," notes Danielle McWilliams, principal at Novità, the communications agency representing Ceramics of Italy.
This year’s iteration of the annual international trade show, held over five bustling days at the end of September, drew more than 90,000 visitors to the Bologna Exhibition Centre. Bringing together leading manufacturers, visionary architects, and interior designers from around the globe, the five-day event showcased the cutting edge of ceramic tile, architectural surfaces, and bathroom furnishings. Across expansive exhibition halls, roughly 600 exhibitors hailing from 24 countries presented their latest breakthroughs.
Beyond the sheer volume of attendees, there was a palpable energy to this year’s fair—a vibrant buzz that extended far beyond the crowded corridors and spilled directly into the temporary showrooms, where brands displayed bold, exciting collections that challenged traditional design conventions. Alongside a dramatic return to saturated color, top trends at the 43rd edition included oversized large-format slabs, heightened textures, three-dimensional elements, intricate digital printing techniques, and extraordinarily convincing natural material effects.
Color Makes a Comeback
While stark white and understated neutrals will permanently hold a foundational place in interior design, ceramic makers at Cersaie clearly signaled that they were no longer shying away from rich, saturated hues. The industry has entered a phase defined by a renewed confidence in chromatic expression.
"We are certainly seeing a renewed confidence in color," observes Benedetta Borghi of external affairs at Atlas Concorde. "There is a much greater willingness to use stronger colors as part of the architectural palette."
Rather than serving as mere background notes, vivid tones are increasingly being treated as primary design instruments. Pairing these bright, saturated hues with warm whites and soft neutrals yields a thoroughly refreshed architectural aesthetic. Atlas Concorde’s Boost Hux collection, for instance, pairs warm natural tones with targeted accents of green, red, blue, and ember, while the brand’s Vivia line introduces vivid glazed colors directly inspired by traditional Italian ceramics. For manufacturers like Atlas Concorde, color is evolving into a functional design tool rather than a simple decorative afterthought.
This sentiment is echoed by Cristina Faedi, a renowned tile trend expert, consultant to Confindustria Ceramica, and founder and art director of Infinite Possibilità. According to Faedi, some Italian companies have effectively doubled the color options within their core product ranges, while others have introduced multiple density variations of a single hue to grant designers unprecedented nuance.
Green Takes Root
The sweeping resurgence of rich color can partly be viewed as a natural market pendulum swing following years of dominance by muted tones and stark neutrals. However, industry experts also point to broader cultural shifts and the chaotic state of the contemporary world as influences on modern tile palettes. Faedi draws an interesting parallel to the seven chakras, which correspond to the colors of the rainbow, noting that green specifically represents empathy and emotional healing.
It stands to reason, then, that green is having a momentous run across contemporary ceramic design. It is a color that inherently evokes calm, drawing direct inspiration from the natural world. It tells a narrative of diverse landscapes, wild herbs, thermal waters, and rolling oceans. Alongside these botanical and aquatic shades—which range from deep forest greens to pale, calming sages—grounding palettes of earthy terracotta and warm natural tones commanded significant attention on the showroom floor.
Glossy finishes were frequently deployed to amplify these colors, making them catch the light and truly pop within a residential or commercial space. For instance, the Plinth collection from Sartoria—a brand under the Terratinta Group umbrella—is available in distinct shades of green, including Moss and Stone Green. Featuring a three-dimensional surface, the collection introduces tactile depth and dimension directly to vertical wall applications.
Playing with Perception
The evolution of ceramic engineering has pushed the medium far beyond its traditional boundaries. As materials science has advanced, tile has transitioned from a mere floor or wall covering into a standalone architectural element.
"Ceramic is no longer simply reproducing a material: the surface itself is becoming an architectural element," Borghi explains. "That’s an interesting evolution."
This design philosophy was on full display through innovative products that manipulate light, shadow, and touch. Marca Corona introduced its Multiforme Mira wall tiles, designed to complement the brand’s concrete-effect porcelain floor tiles. Within the collection, the Tassello decorative variant features small, three-dimensional tesserae meticulously arranged to create the optical illusion of a continuous, seamless mosaic. Glossy and luster-glazed details are strategically set against a matte background to heighten the visual interplay.
Similarly, Moooi Ceramic Surfaces teamed up with ABK as part of The Nesting Room collection to create Hypnotic Owl. This floor and wall tile features a tactile, three-dimensional relief surface brought to life using ABK’s proprietary 3DTECH technology, a specialized manufacturing process that applies glazes and textures digitally to porcelain stoneware.
Meanwhile, Appiani—a brand under the Gruppo Bardelli umbrella—showcased Lamiere as part of its Pastelli Strutture collection. Inspired by industrial sheet metal, these through-body ceramic tiles utilize a sophisticated chiaroscuro effect to craft the convincing illusion of a three-dimensional surface. The result is a striking optical illusion: tiles that appear deeply dimensional yet remain completely flat and smooth to the touch.
Nature, Reimagined
When authentic stone or precious marble proves too fragile, maintenance-heavy, or cost-prohibitive for a project, porcelain ceramics continue to bridge the gap by offering the exact aesthetics of natural materials backed by the high performance and durability of engineered stone. While porcelain’s imitation of nature is not entirely new, rapid advancements in digital printing have rendered these effects virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
"We are talking about controlled chaos," Faedi says, describing modern tiles that successfully mimic the irregularities of natural stone. "Technology can create this apparently chaotic mix of colors, hues, and shapes, but with a great visual impact, thanks precisely to modern techniques."
Gruppo Romani brand Verde introduced Essenziale, a glazed porcelain stoneware engineered to capture the distinct materiality of limestone. Utilizing a specialized Contour Tech 3D printing process, the tile body is colored at varying depths to accurately replicate the organic irregularities found in sedimentary stone.
Similarly, the Marble Boutique collection from Del Conca offers an aesthetic so convincing that it is easily mistaken for authentic marble or onyx. Available in three distinct finishes—Shine, Natural, and Structured—the line encompasses six material options featuring enhanced color depth and intricate veining, scaled up in large-format slabs measuring 48 by 110 inches.
Sizing Up
The trajectory toward larger formats continued to dominate production strategies across Europe, even as large-slab manufacturing has matured over the past two decades. European manufacturers, particularly in Italy and Spain, first pioneered oversized formats back in 2001 by leveraging advanced pressing techniques that shattered the limits of traditional 12-by-12-inch tiles.
In the United States, the American National Standards Institute officially classified large-format tile in January 2025 as any unit with a facial dimension of 23 inches or greater. At Cersaie, numerous exhibitors pushed these boundaries even further, showcasing extra-large slabs designed to minimize grout lines and maximize visual continuity. Cotto D’Este’s Solaris collection exemplifies this movement, offering formats that extend up to an impressive 24 by 128 inches.
"We see large slabs as a way to create greater continuity across different elements of a space, from floors and walls to kitchen countertops, islands, and furniture," Borghi notes.
From Paint to Pixels
One of the most compelling narratives at the 2026 trade show was the fascinating intersection of ultra-modern high-tech digital processes and time-honored, hand-painted craftsmanship. Manufacturers demonstrated an increasing willingness to place cutting-edge manufacturing side-by-side with artisanal traditions.
Ceramica Bardelli introduced Tulipani, a collection designed by Ronald van der Hilst featuring floral motifs rendered across three distinct patterns through technologies ranging from cold digital printing to laser engraving. The brand also presented Searcus, designed by Riccardo Capuzzo, which brings playful sea- and circus-inspired graphics to life using cold digital printing techniques.
In direct contrast to these pixel-driven innovations, Ceramica Francesco De Maio presented its Three Elements, One Matter collection, designed and hand-painted by acclaimed architect Kengo Kuma.
"I sought to let nature emerge through the hand, where each tile carries a continuous human gesture, sometimes as light as rain, sometimes as soft as mist, sometimes as grounded as earth," Kuma reflects. "Material, movement, and landscape quietly become one."
