G: ‘We've been lucky enough not to have to target anybody.’ What sort of clients are interested in ceramic tiles? Do you go after a specific type of client? ![]() And the struggles and risks of entrepreneurship are far more evident to me now than they were in all those other years.’ I feel more like a business owner now than I've ever felt before. G: ‘It's interesting, because both of us have been self-employed for essentially our entire careers, but this is different. There's always been some trouble, but the limits of failure right now totally new to me.’ J: ‘I have a lot of experience with shipping furniture and fragile goods. Since your studio is so new, I imagine it's hard to judge whether this is just the stress of business as usual or a special situation. But we're trying different carriers so, hopefully, it'll work out better.’ J: ‘It's tough explaining to customers that it's out of our hands. G: ‘Imagine an order that you ship to the US gets lost, so you send it again, and then it gets lost again…’ We've got about 50 parcels missing right now, which is quite frustrating.’ But the shipping industry is terrible in general at the moment. Tiles are heavy and fragile, so the price of shipping could sometimes be almost half the price of the product. Shipping tiles to the US is so difficult. Does this new craft come with logistical hurdles? There are so many for small businesses. It feels like a new craft that we've invented.’ We're on the digital print side, but we're also on the craft side. Then you have other small companies that do, for example, digital print pictures of your dog on tiles that you can hang. G: ‘There are other small-scale tiles companies, of course, but they're all producing using conventional techniques – think of the traditional crafts that have been around for hundreds of years. J: ‘The tile industry is huge but, as far as we know, we're the only ones doing what we're doing.’ What's the state of the tile industry right now, and where do you sit within it? When Jaap joined full-time half a year ago, that was the start of the company, more or less.’ I had all the time in the world to focus 100% on this project. I was working for retail-focused companies, so all my clients disappeared in the first week. We believed in it, but it wasn't very convincing to anybody around us that it was actually going to happen. G: ‘For a while, the idea lived in the “let's start a band” phase. I thought: This is something really special, but is it possible to do something more than just plain colors?’ J: ‘The first time I realized my fascination with ceramic tiles was in London, when I saw the London Underground stations with those deep-green glazed bricks. The tiles were super crap but, when Jaap visited and saw them, he looked at me and said: “This is it, let's do it.” Three or four years later, we have a tiles factory.’ At some point, I went to Arita for a residence and made tiles there. Jaap went into the sales and refurbishment of mid-century furniture and I became more of an autonomous graphic designer, making things like silk-screen posters. We then had separate careers in design and found our own niches. ![]() G: ‘We met in school when we were 16 years old in the south of the Netherlands. When did you two become obsessed with them? Hey, Gilles and Jaap, let's talk ceramic tiles.
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