Our Success Story!
Our history about creating customized mosaic tile designs, begins at the beginning of the twentieth century on the island of Cyprus but, first of all, we would like to thank you.
Thank you to all the architects, interior designers and individual home and Yacht owners from whom we have received over 150 Mosaic Tile Design orders. Whether these orders were just a few mosaic borders or larger hotel and yacht interior mosaic projects, thank you. Because your trust has kept Art Studio Ayhan Keser on its feet for 20 years.
Ayhan keser
2002 – Our very first mosaic work.
After his geological engineering studies, founder Ayhan Keser decided to create a mosaic image from the wall tiles he found in his holiday house on the island of Cyprus. His studies had brought him from huge and heavy marble blocks to smaller and lighter marble mosaics because they were easier to work with. But since it was not so easy to find such marble mosaics in Cyprus, he decided to work with wall tiles to create simple patterns.
With „zero experience“ he started to break the wall tiles with the backside of an axe, which was almost impossible. The mosaic, was glued on a net and after drying on a wooden panel. The size of it is 120 Cm x 40 Cm. The mosaic is still hanging in the holiday house in Cyprus.
2003 – First Art Studio and Showroom
Officially we started at the end of 2002 and established our first company under the name, Delphina Trading / Keser – Cyprus Mosaic Studio, on the island of Cyprus in Famagusta. This name became „Art Studio Ayhan Keser“ in 2007. After a while we realized that we need a small space an art studio so that potential clients who are interested in smaller mosaic sheets for their construction, can visit us. For this reason we rented an art studio that was just 18 square meters. This is also the period when we decided to invest more time and know-how in the custom made mosaic tile design business.
2004 – first products – first clients
At first, our idea was to start with simple borders and floor decor mosaics productions made of wall tiles and floor tiles, thus making a name in the marketplace. After a short marketing campaign, we managed to get orders from major tile dealers. We started to produce simple mosaic border and mosaic floor medallions.
Mosaic border and Medallion productions – 2004.
The orders that came from different tile dealers located on the island of Cyprus, after a time became more and more. These orders were mostly Mosaic Borders and Medallions that we had to custom design and create from their tile assortment.
Cutting tiles
In 2004, we produced them orders with the help of a manually operated tile cutter (Rubi brand).
Of course, there was always an intensive design phase where we first showed on drawing how the medallion of Mosaic tiles should look like. According to this drawing, the individual parts of the mosaic medallion were then cut out of the tiles.
In the end, this period helped us a lot to see and understand how different wall-floor tiles or porcelain tiles react to cutting. The handcrafting of different tiles has helped us to gain precise craftsmanship and sensitivity which plays the most important role in the production of handmade mosaic tile design products.
2005 – Process engineering – development
Ayhan Keser believed that a handmade product, should first pass some tests before being bought by a client. During this production he also always used a stop watch to see how much time was needed for certain processes in the Mosaic Tile Design production. Today, we are still on the same opinion that the quality and the production time for making the customized handmade Mosaic product, is at the forefront. He often went to construction fairs to find better tools with which to cut and reshape tiles better.
„For me, it is very important that I first see for myself how my product reacts to the wall application“.
AYHAN KESER
At the beginning, he has mostly done the installation of Mosaic tile design products for his clients himself to make sure that the visual quality and technical application was right. This was always a good opportunity to see how the product, which is simply handmade, reacts with different building substances e.g. with tile adhesive and grout.
Production Processes and Development:
- Researching better Formable Tiles.
- Designing according to convertible shapes.
- Researching durable adhesives and mesh.
- Researching machines for cutting tiles.
- Developing mosaic cutting methods with handtools.
- Researching better drying options.
- Researching better packing options.
2006 – Step into architectural mosaic art world
After the production period of hundreds of custom made mosaic borders and medallion products, we have ventured into the architectural mosaic tile art design world. Knowing by now which tile is better for which cut, we started creating large murals from tile mosaics that were 1 Cm x 1 Cm.
Development never ends
For us it was and still is exciting to see the development of the mosaic tile design production. In 2005, machines that cut large tiles into very small mosaics were very expensive because they were very popular. Another problem was that our art studio was located on the turkish side of the island and for political reasons a delivery of such a machine was not possible.
In 2005, Ayhan Keser converted a simple electric marble cutter into a tile mosaic cutter. With this technique, we were able to reproduce mosaics in the size of 1 cm x 1 cm and 2 cm x 2 cm from large wall and floor tiles.
Under normal circumstances, the process would have to run on a belt conveyor, which was not the case with this machine. However, it still fit the production time because orders for artistic mosaic tile design for architectural purposes did not come in every day.
2005 – New Mosaic Sheet Products
With our new production process we were also able to create new wall and floor mosaic sheets as we could also cut mosaics like 3 cm x 1.5 cm or tiles in similar sizes.
2007 – Moving Production to Istanbul
Due to political problems on the island, it was not possible to sell the products produced by our Art Studio abroad. For this reason, in 2006 we decided to move our Mosaic tile design production to Istanbul. Here we have omitted the production of mosaic borders and medallions and have focused directly on architectural mosaic tile designs products. At our new location, we have received and successfully created approximately 150 custom mosaic tile design orders. Among these orders, Ethiopian Railway Corporation Tunnel Mosaic Project (Urban) and Burulas-Bursa Metro Stations Mosaic Project (Urban) are some of the major projects.
2007 – 2020, Main Focus: architectural wall mosaics
Commercial Mosaics
In this new period, we have made dozens of mosaic murals for bistro and restaurant chains, bars and dance clubs. We have eliminated the cutting of mosaics with the machine as we now had access to all kinds of mosaics as well as glass mosaics and marble mosaics. Instead, we focused much more on the visual design of custom mosaic tile design, as we now also had much more time for it.
Also large companies have often provided us with large walls, in the entrance area of their headquarters, for the application of wall mosaics.
Wall mosaic designs for Building entrances in luxury districts.
A new market to apply our mosaic tile designs were walls located at the entrances of buildings in luxury locations in Istanbul like Nisantasi, Tesvikiye, Bagdad Caddesi. These were buildings in which apartments are sold for a price of 1 – 1.5 million dollars.
No question that such buildings need a chic and outstanding entrance, which is very well possible with wall mosaic designs. We have created with different glass mosaics types, several wall mosaic orders under this context.
2014 – Integrating Wall Murals with paint.
In 2014 we applied for the first time a completely different version of the art for the wall of a huge dance club. „Wall Mural with Wall paint or spray paint„.
The order came from the interior designer who was responsible for designing a cool dance club. With this, we incorporated a new technique with which we could create large murals with wall paint or spray paint, into our Art Studio business.
The reason for including wall murals with wall paints was that some of our customers did not know that custom designed ones took a lot of time to make. The production process of this new version of Wall Mural was much faster than Mosaic tile design production time.
In this way, we also created the opportunity to work with clients whose deadline for the interior design of the building was already close.
He becomes instructor for fine arts
In these years (2007 – 2018), founder Ayhan Keser was invited as an instructor to universities and individually designed conferences about the mosaic tile design, several times as a speaker.
At present, Ayhan Keser is still an instructor of fine arts at MVHS (Munich) and at Vhs Landkreis Harburg. Here he teaches children and adults to design and create different types of visual arts.
2021 – The crowning glory
„our art studio business is growing, it’s getting so boring“.
– Ayhan keser, 2020.
Actually, our art studio business got really fast out of hand because we had to deal with all kinds of mosaic tile design and wall mural projects from all around the world, which didn’t fit our company culture at all. For many people it may sound strange that a founder complains about the growth of his company. Considering the fact that during the growth of an art studio, creativity and quality are under enormous pressure, it is not a bad decision to filter orders and focus on challenging orders.
The New Concept
In our new concept is the design and creation of mosaic tile designs and murals (stencil art) using spray paints or wall paints. In the first view our product range has not changed much but our main focus is on challenging new mosaic tile design and wall mural orders that are well suited for the sustainable architecture and interior design of today.
„After all these years, it is time to enjoy the experience I have achieved through hard work.“.
2021- ayhan keser
2022 – New Art Studio in Jesteburg, Germany
Our goal is to create customized Unique mosaic tile design and wall mural design projects for Bistros, Restaurants, Bars, Hospitals, Schools, Houses, Yachts etc. We will remain as a small art studio at our new location in Jesteburg-Germany that focuses on each piece of the client’s mosaic project. Always feel free and get in Contact about Your project.
