Choosing a Design:

The selection of a design uses a color and form criteria. Marble and granite colors are generally limited to earth tones and pastels, with an occasional bright color coming from semi precious stones. The forms should be well delineated, meaning that a design with soft foggy areas and smudged lines or diffusion would not translate well into this type of mosaic as it would be transformed to a graphic design and lose some of its most important qualities.

In some projects we have searched for appropriate images and presented a range of designs to choose from that adapt well to mosaics, while in others the artist presented us with a design for a specific project. Ideally designs for murals should have some wide areas with little or no detail and areas of intricate work. This would stay within a reasonable economic boundary and produce a mosaic that would cover a large area well. Creating shadow and gradations of color can be produced by using natural variations in the stone or by breaking the form down into gradients of tone. The more intricate the design, the more labor is needed to reproduce it, hence a higher cost. The working design itself must be a full size linear enlargement. We prefer to make the working design ourselves or work together with the artist to produce it, as this affords us the opportunity to resolve aspects that may present problems for production.