Portugal has long put the things it wants to keep on tile. Saints, sea battles, the view of a city from the river. Here, it can be your grandparents on their wedding day, or the dog asleep on the sofa.
Upload a photograph and we reimagine it in blue and white azulejo style, inside one of our four borders: Lisboa, Porto, Algarve or Braga. On a pet tile, their name goes beneath the portrait. You see the design before you buy. Made to order in Porto, from €25.
Each tile is made to order in our shop in Porto.
Giving Back
A portion of every order supports heritage restoration in Portugal.
Preserving Tradition
Rooted in Portugal’s tile-making heritage.
Every other collection on our site starts with a design from our studio. This one starts with you.
Your grandparents on the church steps on their wedding day. The house in the village that nobody lives in any more. Your daughter at three, covered in sand. The dog who has slept on the same end of the sofa for eleven years.
Upload the photograph and our design process, MEMÓRIA, reimagines it in blue and white, framed in one of four borders drawn by our design team: Lisboa, Porto, Algarve or Braga. Pet on a Tile adds their name in a banner beneath the portrait. You see the finished design on screen before you decide anything, and you can try another border or another photograph before you choose.
Look above the doors on older streets in Lisbon and you will sometimes find a small panel of tiles with a saint on it. These are registos. After the earthquake of 1755, as the city was rebuilt, small devotional panels like these began appearing on buildings as protection against future disasters. Some were placed there to ask for protection over the building and the people who lived in it.
Inside the grand houses, tile did a different job. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, palace entrances were given figuras de convite: life-size figures cut from azulejo panels, footmen and elegantly dressed ladies standing at the door to greet whoever arrived. At the Palace of the Marquises of Fronteira, the tiles include monkeys playing trumpets. The tradition has never been too serious to make room for an animal.
When São Bento station was built in Porto, Jorge Colaço spent eleven years, from 1905 to 1916, covering its walls with around twenty thousand tiles. Beside the battles and the kings, he put the vineyards, the harvest and the wine going down the Douro. Ordinary people at work, on the same walls as the kings.
So a tile with your grandmother's face on it, or your dog's, fits a long Portuguese habit: putting the people and places you care about on the wall, where everyone who comes to the door can see them.
Every photo tile starts with your own picture and a border drawn by our design team. The artwork is created digitally, and the tile itself is made to order in Porto.
Clear, well-lit photographs give the best results. For a pet, choose one where you can see their eyes.
Sometimes one photograph is not the whole story. Two grandparents who were never in the same picture. A name and a wedding date worked into the artwork. A whole family spread across several tiles.
For that, you work with our design team instead. Send us your photographs and your idea, and our artists will send you 2 to 3 design proposals within 3 to 5 business days. It starts with a €10 design deposit, credited toward your final order, and nothing is made until you have chosen your design.
Saudade Collection
Signature Collection
Touch of Contemporary Collection
