A Look Back at British Designer David Hicks

The late British interior designer David Hicks, arguably the most well-known decorator of his time, created interiors for an international and famous clientele. He was known for his dynamic use of color, and sometimes shocking contrasts. Here are three examples — images courtesy of The Estate of David Hicks:

Many of David Hicks’s interiors employed geometric patterns in flooring, wallpaper and fabrics. An example of a room, from an early period in the designer’s career, uses a carpet with a geometric pattern:

New Tile Designs Released

During the 1960s and 70s, David Hicks created his own geometric design motifs for carpet, fabric and tile. Taking inspiration from the designer’s patterns of the 1970s, three new designs for tile have been created by his son Ashley Hicks, an architect and interior designer.

The new tiles are handmade by skilled artisans at the factory of Moroccan tile company Popham Design. The new versions are being produced in the cement tile medium with colors that are mixed by hand, creating subtle variations. Popham, located in Marrakesh, will produce the tile patterns in custom colors.

The three new tile patterns are: Britwell (shown in Green), Bertie (shown in Terra), and Hicksonian, a motif of the interlocking H’s of the David Hicks logo (shown in Blue/Chocolate).

Ashley Hicks used the Hicksonian motif tile in his country house in both the bathroom (shown below) and the dining room.

The Bertie pattern is shown installed in this image from Popham Design:

(As a thought, it seems fitting that these new tiles, with geometric design motifs, are being produced in Morocco, a country with a history of geometric tile designs.)

Previous Tile Design Release

Previously, nine classic 1960s David Hicks’ motifs were re-interpreted by Ashely Hicks and reproduced in stone by Studium, a New York tile company with a showroom in New York City. The Studium tiles can be produced in marble or limestone, with custom ordering possible in terms of medium, finish, and color.

The David Hicks Legacy

Geometric patterns add a sense of structure and order to the design of a room’s interior. David Hicks was a master at employing geometric patterns, using them at times to create a ‘taylored’ effect in his room designs.

Admired and copied during his time, David Hicks’s style continues to have influence today.