The Artistic Digest | Ali Budd

s the largest city of a huge country,

Toronto is cosmopolitan, international, and blessed with a thriving design scene. The Toronto-based designer ‌Ali Budd is young in years, but has grown her firm over the last decade to the point that she is a true design star, with projects all over North America. When Ali approached Artistic Tile about a collaboration on a tile collection, she did so in the modern way. “I reached out on Instagram – saying, I have ideas for tile designs, if you ever would consider this, it’d be a dream come true.” ‌

‌

Ali’s outreach started a discussion, and soon after she spoke with Artistic Tile Founder & Chair, Nancy Epstein. “Right away, Nancy politely but frankly said ‘Let me tell you, we have tried this many times. A great interior designer doesn’t always equal a great product designer.’ Which of course was just fuel for my fire to be the one who was! I must have presented 20 different ideas, and Nancy said, ‘Okay, we think we can do this with you!’ which was wonderful, because I had fallen in ‘professional love’ with the Artistic Tile team.”‌

Opia had a very different path to introduction. It features an Art Deco-inspired demilune motif, a shape that recurs in Ali’s design work in highly varied, satisfying ways. “I was inspired by Art Deco, certainly, but we sketched and sketched, and the final design was ‘the one.’ I tried very hard to be the product designer that Nancy thought I might not be, to put aside a lifetime of client-dedicated work, taking the possible client out

of the equation, but when I saw the finished colorways, an ‘ideal client’ for each one came to me right away."‌

Kata’s design impetus occurred entirely by chance: on a visit to the Artistic Tile Slab Gallery in Secaucus, Ali was

struck by a fairly common sight - a slab with a jagged edge placed in front of a different, larger slab. The juxtaposition

of the two stones struck a creative chord in Ali. “I thought, this is SO cool! Is it possible that no one has ever designed

a tile that looks like this? And nobody had! That was how Kata was born." In Ali’s offices, she has just installed a “glam wall” of Kata Rosa for media shoots, and there is a fascinating dichotomy between the softness of the rosy colorway

and the dynamic edgy shapes of the tile.‌

Opia’s other colorway is Nero, a highly graphic

blend of black, white, and rose marbles with brass, which creates a commanding foyer floor in Ali’s office. Ali was excited when the expansion & renovation of her office

in Toronto’s North York Design District allowed for the

first installation of both Opia and Kata, and was utterly thrilled when a client encountered them for the first time: “This client is our most clean line/linear/contemporary client, and she walked in for a meeting here, stopped dead in the foyer and said ‘WHAT is that? I have never seen anything like this before. I am obsessed!’ She immediately

had us redesign her powder room to feature Opia Nero!” ‌