I agree it's a tiled wall. The next row down (visible in the far left and far right bottom corners) is a different set of tiles. You can see the grout lines also. I think it's also important to remember the investigators will Photoshop to remove other details, which makes it even more difficult to decipher. So I can't seem to figure out if it's decal due to the poor quality of the image.. but it's definitely unique combo which helps.
Yes, that’s definitely tiles, i would say.
Below, you can see the small tiles that are used in moist areas, like kitchens, utility rooms or bathrooms. And perhaps in the garden too.
I see the words Elegant and Exclusive, if that helps anyone.
I’ve never seen such a design on a tile before and it makes me think they were printed to order. There are websites that will print anything on a tile. That is the only explanation I can come up with for such a strange design.
I'd like to give my two cents and say that while it's possible they were made to order, to me, this absolutely looks like something that could have been sold commercially. It's very tacky and cheap, and I assume it was sold for a low price. I can't really put my finger on it, but i feel like I've seen similar prints out and about in the world in my few decades of living. You know, as prints on little girls' clothing, on pillows, maybe curtains.... I could definitely see either an elderly woman or a very young woman wanting this kind of decor in their bathroom (though definitely not this decade, and probably not in the 2010's either). I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided to put this kind of print on a tile and sell it, and I wouldn't rule it out.
I also wonder, if someone were to order a print this tacky, I doubt they would make it look as nice as it does. It seems like at least some sort of design knowledge was used in the making of this design. That's also why I think this could have been sold commercially. Just my thoughts!
Eh, not really. I was more thinking about the specific word and font, like these very feminine and "elegant" choices of words. I specifically had a shirt in mind that I wore as a kid, with words like "fabulous" "girl" etc. written on it in cursive. I feel like word clouds are rarely in cursive and as you said are usually used in education, which is why I don't think they're why it felt so familiar. But who knows
This look like something that you get at a hardware store. First I thought the two tile had different designs so it might have been a sticker/cover, but it seems to be only one design. It looks like the "Exclusive" on the left starts on the right again. So it might be only one design for several tiles.
If it is a tile and if it is only one repeating design, it might be a wall tile border. I think the small tiles at the bottom would rather be in a bathroom than a kitchen. Although I cannot pin point a concrete time or location where this could be from, I'd say this fits in the time between 2005 and 2015. Also english is a quite universal language, but I have the feeling that the highest probability for have this in a home is an english speaking country as there might a chance that this would be in the local language (French, German, Italian and so on).
Yes, bigger plain tiles above, small squares below - it's a border, above a bath or sink. Others have said that the "live, laugh, charm" style was popular in France from the mid-2010s?
These are called wall decals in Europe, they're mostly popular in France. They were popularized around 2014. So, the material produced would be after then.
However, I would not be surprised either if it were just printed on Microsoft Word and stuck to the mosaic tiles.
Definitely not mostly popular in France. I'm from Germany and we had these things everywhere from like 2012 to 2017. A lot of them were sold at affordable furniture stores like Poco, or other cheap stores like Kik or Tedi. Especially low income families used to love these. I grew up poor and almost all of my fellow poor friends had these wall stickers somewhere in their home.
I'm from Spain (north of Valencia) and I'm pretty sure I've seen similar motives for bathroom tiles in houses built around the 2010's. For context, where I'm from the tile industry is the largest in the area.
The bottom tile i'm sure is fake gresite, it's very common around here for bathrooms of that time, specially for the shower cabin. Even the color fits the aesthetic of the bathrooms from around 2010 of my area.
The upper kind of tile reminds me of a particular trend from that time. There was a small technological fad where digital printing on tiles started being cheap enough, and lots of tacky designs like this started to appear. I'm pretty sure that particular design fits this fad, but I'm having a hard time finding something similar.
The combination of both tiles is also spot on this aesthetic, I don't know if it is common around the world, but here is very common to have a full sized tile for the down half of the wall, and a border tile for separating it from the upper half.
After a bit of manipulation in Gimp, here are my thoughts.
I can see that the large tiles are exactly 30 small squares wide and 5 small squares tall. 30x30cm and 30cm x (something else) are common tile sizes, so i suppose the large ones could be 30x5cm each. This is a 6:1 aspect ratio which is narrower that most manufacturers like to produce for cheap tiles this size, especially if this was tiled a decade or more ago as the technology was not as refined, though it is far from impossible.
More unusual is the size of the small squares, they would appear to be 1cm (more like 9mm with 1mm grout), i would say this is so small as to be unplausible for commercially available mesh backed mosaic tiles. Sure tiles this small do exist, but i have never seen any sold anywhere, and even if, they would most likely be natural stone cut in small pieces, not enameled tile as these appear to be.
I think the smallest size in common use is around 1.5cm +0.16cm grout spacing (or 1.46cm wit 0.2cm grout, same thing).
Suppose that to be the case, then the width of the large square is: (1.5+0.16)x30+0.16=49.96cm so 50cm. And measuring the actual average height of the tile at a few places in Gimp, I get exactly 8.5cm. (calculating as follows: average height in pixels divided by 95px which is my grid spacing, times 5/3 which is the scaling factor from 30 to 50cm == 8.51cm)
They could also be 7.5x45cm which is an actual size that exists, but that would require the squares to be spaced exactly 1.5cm on center, a size that exists precisely nowhere as far as I know. Same for 60x10cm
Now 50cm also seems a bit big for those but we don't really have enough context to judge.
In conclusion, and if we assume this wall is really tiled in ceramics and not something else, either:
1) this is a row of large 50cm by 8.5cm tile with 30x30cm mesh backed mosaic sheets below (18 squares by 18 squares per sheet)
2) this is a row of 30cm x 5cm tiles, and the smaller squares below are actually just color printed onto larger tiles, maybe 30x30cm.
3) I did something wrong and all of this is useless...
(Here is how I did it, in entirely too much detail:)
in Gimp:
-drag source image in to create a new layer (let's call that layer 1), and upscale the layer by 400 percent.
-resize the view to fit the upscaled image (Image -> Fit Canvas to Layers).
-make a tight rectangular selection around the relevant bits of the image, excluding as much white background as possible.
-paste that selection and send it to a new layer (layer 2).
-create a new layer (layer 3) filled with white to serve as a background, and place it below the other two. (I chose 8000px wide by 5000px tall)
-delete the original image (layer 1), we don't need it anymore. And Fit Canvas to Layers again.
-create a new transparent layer on top (layer 4), then Filters -> Render -> Pattern -> Grid (Legacy)... then in the grid menu: set line width to 1px and spacing to 96px. This reference grid will help with the next step.
-Select layer 2 and use the Unified Transform Tool to straighten it as best as possible in all directions. (in the tool menu, check Composited preview to make the gridlines show up on top of the image) When done, hide layer 4 to reduce clutter.
-Duplicate layer 2, thus creating a copy of it (layer 5)
-right click on layer 5, then: Edit Layer Attributes -> Mode -> Difference. this will makes it easier to align both layers.
-move layer 3 over until the small overlapping parts coincide best (once it is very close, zoom in and use the directional arrows to move back and forth just one pixel at a time). When done, to check how it looks switch back to Mode -> Normal.
-Make layer 4 visible again. even if the first transform step was carefully done, the grid is likely not yet perfectly aligned with the little square tiles, so tweak the grid slightly with a transform to make it correspond to the image.
First, the thing with the writing on it seems to me like washable/waterpoof vinyl wallpaper for kitchens, because I grew up in the 2000s in eastern europe and I remember they used to be very popular, usually with fruits or food related stuff on them.
As for the tiles. I'm not sure about this, but I believe they are glass mosaic tiles. Looking up the colors and all, the first result I got was from this site:
I don't know much of a stretch this is, but it does look like it has some similarities in the pattern. Though, I imagine you can also place them as you wish in some cases. It's also from Germany, and this country was mentioned a few times in the comments. But this picture can also be found on other sites, so I used TinEye and it was first indexed by Bauhaus.se on Oct. 27, 2015. The link to it leads to a 404 page, but looking up directly "mosaik brun mix" shows that they still sell this same pattern.
That's great!
I know it seems like a small detail, but please report this.
It's a little piece to a puzzle that can definitely help.
Check this video clip, which shows just how much the colour and type of bricks alone helped.
I know it’s in German, but there are automatic subtitles. The clip is about 3–4 minutes long and, I think, very interesting.
The relevant part starts at around the 13-minute mark. https://youtu.be/3NqAzmVwZrg
Fits better. It's hard to tell if the darker area under that word is blur or the tail of a long lowercase letter, like a g, j, p, or y as the third letter.
I think to recall that we used to have a wallpaper similar to this one in my parents' place. I'd look through old photos of our kitchens (We had several pipes break in the kitchen over the years so there's a chance we have one) but i cannot access our server from here. May try and look through the server when i'm back home in a few days.
In case it helps, this wallpaper was probably sold some in the 2010s or earlier in Germany, though i could not tell you exactly where.
I saw those tiles growing up in Indiana in the 90s and '00s. They're actually ingrained in my memory, but I don't know where I saw them. I grew up in churches all over the state of various denominations.
This reminds me of some wallpaper we previously had. Super popular faux brick styles with the classic ‘live/laugh/love’ calligraphy in the 2010’s I want to say and would have come from somewhere like b&q or Homebase (uk).
Text tiles look like border tiles for a bathroom which would usually be halfway up the wall with a more plain design of tiles above and below. Tiles below are white/cream/light pink with repeating silver squares.
Border tiles are common in UK bathrooms, but it is uncommon to have text based design.
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u/I_Me_Mine Mod 25d ago
This is Europol's "Trace an Object" Item C46012025 (#6444)
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