Tile Designs: More Than 100 Ready-to-Use Tiling Patterns
Much like the art of patchwork, geometric designs, when applied to tiles and decorative surfaces, turn a prosaic floor, wall, and countertop into eye poetry. Math teacher Adams has combined her fascination with Islamic art and the precision inherent in her profession to produce more than 100 patterns. The introductory chapters focus on how-to’s of laying. After that look at the basics, the author concentrates on the square grid: first detailing how to design with those restrictions, then offering different patterns. Most are based on her visual experiences in the Middle East: a mosque in Dubai, mall skylights in Brunei, and a coffeepot from Kuwait. Even better, she shows us the origins for many of her designs, contrasting her graphs with photographs of the original inspiration. Her actual tessellations (the art of fitting many repetitions of the same shape together to completely fill a flat plane, with no gaps), which are labeled with romantic monikers (such as Fatima square, Dubai deco, and Medina motif), are grouped by increasing complexity, from plain old tessellations for tiles to whole-square designs. --Barbara Jacobs