Terrazzo may not be the first thing that springs to mind when you think of a design trend, but not so fast. After all, this popular flooring and wall treatment, a composite material that’s either precast or poured into place, is made up of pieces of marble, quartz, granite, or glass. These individual components are then poured with a so-called binder, whether polymeric, cement-based or a combination thereof. That’s how you get Terrazzo. However, it’s the intricate and interesting patterns that result from this happy mixture that has established Terrazzo as a design style that delivers quite the aesthetic punch. That’s to say nothing of the stunning colors that are also possible with this material! It’s no wonder, then, that this material has influenced numerous graphic-design creations, websites, and even inspired various social-media hashtags and Twitter chats. As you’ll soon find out, Terrazzo is a lot more than just a flooring material. It’s a design aesthetic that goes back thousands of years, while still retaining its unique influence today in the 21st century.
The History of Terrazzo (and Terrazzo Design)
You may be surprised to learn that this material was first used as early as 9000 to 8000 BC, according to archaeologists, who use the word “Terrazzo†to denote the floors of early-Neolithic structures. The Neolithic is a reference to a period of mankind’s development, particularly in technology, starting at approximately 10,200 BC and lasting until about 4500 to 2000 BC.
One Neolithic settlement especially is famous for its Terrazzo floors. Archaeologists have found such features in Cayonu, in eastern Turkey: almost 1000 square feet of Terrazzo have been unearthed there.
To say that this design style has quite the history behind it is quite an understatement.
The Characteristics of Terrazzo Design
Whether Terrazzo appears in the floor or as part of a graphic-design creation, this substance’s freewheeling creation process gives way to numerous possibilities and styles. As a result, we get to enjoy a lot of diversity in Terrazzo pieces, but, at the end of the day, they all share, in one way or another, the following qualities:
- Speckling
- Dotting
- Textures
- Asymmetry
- Imperfection
- Contrast (colors, shapes, forms, sizes)
- Neutral colors as well as vibrant ones
- Patterning
- Geometric influences (lines, curves, circles, triangles)
- Versatility
The beauty of this material–and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the literal material or abstract illustrations or images of it–is that it goes with everything. A Terrazzo floor or wall goes with any piece of furniture you put in the room, just as a Terrazzo graphic pattern goes well in any presentation, brochure, business card, or layout for a website.
Now that we have a solid idea of what design features comprise this design trend, let’s dig deeper into all the visually interesting examples of Terrazzo that abound across many disciplines.
To see this style’s interesting design features up close and personal, have a glance at several terrazzo digital assets from our marketplace:
Terrazzo in Graphic Design
Because of this versatile substance’s eye-catching designs–both in flooring and walls–it has carried over to this art medium, where graphic designers have taken its features and turned them into digital masterpieces.
Terrazzo Patterns
This set of vector graphics features 12 patterns in this aesthetic. The designs highlight the visually attractive nature of this material, as textures with speckling abound. Not only a pleasing study in terms of contrast, but the speckled patterns also show off a good amount of asymmetry and randomness, displaying how a bit of unevenness lends itself to interesting visual effects.
The patterns here are ideal for projects such as packaging, branding, posters, leaflets, or fashion apparel, further demonstrating the versatility of Terrazzo design.
- Art prints
- Flyers
- Posters
- Postcards
- Stationery
- Invites
- Web elements
- Branding kits
- Business cards
- Blog design
- T-shirts
- Fabric prints
- Book covers
Creatives are literally limited solely by their imagination.
Terrazzo/Granito Seamless Patterns
An excellent example of how to apply this design trend to 3D objects, these patterns give designers a large amount of freedom and customizability. These vector patterns are easy to handle and print.
Looking for some extra textures on your textiles? Simply print them off and use them on everything from pillowcases to blankets. If you work in packaging design, these patterns are a godsend, too: whether it’s the tube of a lotion or the outside of a lovely handbag, Terrazzo style is versatile. Of course, you can use them on paper as well, making these vectors ideal for envelopes, business cards, gift paper, and much more.
Terrazzo on Social Media
Since social media gets much of its allure from the visual, it’s fitting that this design trend is very popular on different social platforms, particularly those that are exclusively image-based (think Pinterest and Instagram).
On Pinterest alone, this design style was included in the company’s Pinterest 100: The top trends to try in 2018, a roundup of predictions of what would be hot throughout 2018, all based on global data culled from the company’s numerous categories. Pinterest metrics indicated that saves for “Terrazzo†increased by a remarkable 316% over the last year. It’s safe to say that users and those with an appreciation for fine design are increasingly expressing their interest in this aesthetic by this growth in Terrazzo-related pins.
Search for Terrazzo on the platform, and you’ll quickly be greeted by a seemingly endless number of results as you infinite-scroll down the results page. The results are so voluminous that searching for the term automatically produces several dropdown-menu suggestions for more specific categories, such as Terrazzo flooring, Terrazzo bathroom, and Terrazzo tiles.
Like Pinterest, this visuals-only platform is a cornucopia of posts and images that obsess over this style. Begin typing Terrazzo into Instagram’s search bar, and you’ll quickly get a suggested search result of #terrazzo, which features more than 170,000 results in total. Related topics, like #terrazzofloor have almost 10,000 results.
From there, simply scroll down the platform’s infinite-scroll feature to get your fill of marvelous textures, colors, floors, walls, and graphic-design pieces all giving you a bird’s eye view of this design trend.
Just like with the Vintage Film Cameras design trend, Twitter is surprisingly welcoming to this style, too. Though better known as a firehose of pithy, rapid-fire tweets on everything from politics to influencer musings, this social platform has quite a large selection of terrazzo-related imagery as well.
It just goes to show you that, when a trend is up and coming, users of even unlikely platforms will take the time out of their day to post about it.
Here, just enter #terrazzo into the search field. Once the search page populates, head to the Photos navigation tab, where you can take in as many visuals as you can handle that show this style from all sorts of angles.
Terrazzo in Web Design
This style carries over seamlessly to web design, given its nice textures and patterns. For designers looking to spruce up any webpage, infusing some Terrazzo-inspired designs go a long way toward creating a fresh and unique layout.
Summer in the City GIF
From graphic designer and illustrator Ola Jedrzejewska we get a neat motion-graphics creation that celebrates the glory of this speckled style across a variety of summer-based activities.
Cleaning Terrazzo Infographic
Infographics inform and entertain with their digestible bits of knowledge presented in a fluid way. A Terrazzo tile manufacturing company decided to educate its customers with an infographic, using the spotted, speckled beauty of Terrazzo as the background for its infographic.
Terrazzo in Interiors
Last but not least, we have to cover the area where this material started it all: interiors, especially in flooring. You’ll be surprised at how many famous places have some form of this substance inside of them.
The John Adams Building
The John Adams Building, named after America’s second president, is actually part of the U.S. Library of Congress, the second-oldest of its four buildings. There are two things that are noteworthy here:
1) Sections of floor are made from Terrazzo, like the 5th floor’s elevator lobby
Louisville International Airport
Look down every once in a while when you get the chance to travel through the Louisville International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky, and you’ll see spectacular Terrazzo designs. They’re so spectacular that they were the recipient of a National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association award this year.
- Smart linear arrangements
- Historical fleur-de-lis
- Circular patterns
- Spheres
- Sunbursts
This is one airport where you may want to actually take your time walking through it and spend more time inside of it than you have to, just to appreciate the thoughtful designs right underneath your feet.
Bonus: The Hollywood Walk of Fame
Not an interior, per se, but definitely a shining example of a famous landmark of sorts using this flooring pattern to great effect. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is, of course, the stretch of three blocks along Vine Street and another 15 blocks right along Hollywood Boulevard that immortalizes various celebrities’ contributions to pop culture–for better or worse.
Not Just for Floors
A common misconception when one hears the word “Terrazzo†is that it’s only for flooring, but as we’ve shown here, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Thanks to the inroads being made on the web, graphic design, and social media, this design trend is exploding digitally in all the right places. Due to its highly interesting textures that feature unrelenting specks and patterns that are timeless, this material has legitimately been turned into a design style that more and more people are beginning to discover and appreciate. To stay ahead of the curve with this up-and-coming trend, designers shouldn’t be afraid to include Terrazzo and its related sensibilities in their projects. It’s a surefire way to delight clients.
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Marc is a copywriter and marketer who runs The Glorious Company, a marketing agency. An expert in business and marketing, he helps businesses and companies of all sizes get the most bang for their ad bucks.
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