Alicatado is the Spanish term for a mosaic assembled from cut glazed tiles, the technique behind the great tiled dados of Andalusia. Seville is full of them, and the design studio took the geometry directly: an interlocking arrangement of small forms, printed in two tones so the pattern turns on contrast alone, exactly as the original tilework does.
Reducing it to two colours is what makes the design usable. The geometry stays legible without becoming loud, and from any distance the wall reads as an even worked surface rather than as a motif, which is how tiled dados actually behave in the rooms they line. Close to, the individual shapes resolve and the construction becomes clear.
It was drawn as a supporting design, intended to sit alongside the pictorial papers in the same collection, and that is where it earns its keep: as the plain wall in a scheme that already has a strong one. It also stands alone well in a kitchen, a bathroom or a passage, particularly below a picture rail with paint above. Terracotta, lime plaster and painted timber are the natural companions. On its own it behaves as a textured plain, which is a useful thing to have.
