Archives: Websites

clé is an online tile showroom selling artisan tile to homeowners, designers and trade buyers in the United States. It is organised by material: zellige, cement, brick, terracotta, terrazzo, ceramic, metal and a stone library called Lapidary, plus artist collaborations. It grew out of founder Deborah Osburn’s blog and book Tile Envy, and calls itself “an art gallery, an education resource, a design laboratory, an e-commerce innovator”. Built on Shopify.

Website Design

Lower case throughout. Every label is lower case, from the shop and stock navigation down to product names such as weathered white and battled armor. The wordmark, headings, buttons and breadcrumbs follow the same rule.

Near black on off white. The palette is close to neutral: #231f20 for text and buttons, #f7f7f7 for panel grounds, greys between. An olive green and a red act as accents, the red marking the footer’s second shelf link.

Muli with a display face. Body copy runs in Muli at light weights, with a second family, Ortica, for display text. Type is small and widely leaded so the photography carries the page.

Tiles shot flat, rooms shot in situ. Every thumbnail is the same setup, a panel of laid tile photographed square on a pale ground, so colour and edge irregularity compare across the grid. Editorial blocks below alternate with credited interiors.

Shopping Experience

Faceted the way tile is specified. Collection pages filter on in-stock, usage from interior wall through shower floor to pool waterline, properties such as radiant heating compatible and uv resistant, then material, colour, shape, size and finish.

Priced by the square foot on the card. Each card carries the product name, material tags, series, size and finish, then a rate per square foot. Nothing is priced by the piece at grid level.

A buy box that works as a quantity calculator. Size and colour swatches grey out unavailable combinations, above an in-stock status, a shipping window in weeks and a minimum order in square feet. Shoppers pick a per piece sample or a full order, enter an area and add a 15 per cent overage, which converts to boxes and pieces before Add to cart.

Terms acknowledged at checkout. An Order Acknowledgements panel in the Shopify checkout covers handmade variation, measurement responsibility, curbside delivery and a 48 hour damage reporting window, then asks the buyer to type their initials before paying.

Brand Storytelling

Curation names in place of price tiers. Products are sorted into clé classics, clé heritage and maison clé, described in the footer as affordable staples, tiles that embrace the imperfections of the hand, and boundary breaking tiles where art meets tile.

Imperfection is the argument. Collection copy states every tile is hand-molded, hand-cut and hand-glazed, “which also means no two zellige tiles are exactly alike”, and a section headed “all zellige is not created equal” dismisses machine cut tile.

Notable Features

Education sits beside the shop. Footer columns link clé notes, clé guild, clé education and material guidelines next to shipping and returns, and material pages run essays under the product grid.

A separate outdoor storefront. A bar above the header sends visitors to OUTERclé for outdoor tile, and the terrazzo categories point there as well.

clé Shop Category page example

clé Product page example

clé Checkout page example

clé footer example