IN CLEAR FOCUS: Recorded at Coverings 2025, North America’s largest tile and stone trade show, Seth Segura discusses Bigeye’s creative direction for the event branding. Interior designers Marc Thee and Carmina Ozeata explore innovative materials, sustainability trends, and evolving design approaches. Marc explains his “positive energy” tile collection, while Carmina highlights artisanal techniques. The conversation reveals how Coverings inspires professionals and supports their design practice.
Episode Transcript
Adrian Tennant: Coming up in this episode of IN CLEAR FOCUS:
Seth Segura: It’s not just a product showcase for tile and stone, but it’s really this inspirational experience for everyone who attends.
Carmina Ozeata: When you’re coming here and you’re walking through such an immersive trade show floor, you are just transported.
Marc Thee: You need to come to this show, and you need to really take the time to kind of absorb it, because you will leave with a lot more than you came with.
Adrian Tennant: You’re listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, fresh perspectives on marketing and advertising produced weekly by Bigeye, a strategy-led full-service creative agency growing brands for clients globally. Hello, I’m your host, Adrian Tennant, Chief Strategy Officer. Thank you for joining us. We’re recording today’s podcast at Coverings 2025, an annual international trade show and conference dedicated to the ceramic tile and natural stone industry. It’s being held at the Orange County Convention Center here in Orlando, Florida. Now in its 41st year, Coverings is North America’s largest and most significant gathering for the tile and stone industry, bringing together thousands of professionals from across the globe. To discuss what it’s like to attend Coverings and learn about Bigeye’s involvement in designing and developing marketing materials to support the event, I’m joined by three guests. Seth Segura, the Vice President and Creative Director at Bigeye, has overseen the agency’s work for coverings since 2023. Seth, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Seth Segura: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Adrian Tennant: Marc Thee is co-founder and design principal of Marc-Michaels Interior Design, ranked as one of the top residential design firms in the United States by Interior Design Magazine. With a background that includes designing luxury residential projects worldwide and creating his own tile collection, Marc brings a wealth of expertise to our conversation. Marc, welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Marc Thee: Thank you. Very happy to be here.
Adrian Tennant: And Carmina Ozaida is the principal of Carmina Marie Interior Design and is currently working on several interior design projects here in the Central Florida area. Welcome to IN CLEAR FOCUS, Carmina.
Carmina Ozeata: Thank you so much.
Adrian Tennant: Seth, let’s start with you. For our listeners who aren’t familiar with Coverings, could you briefly explain what this event is and its significance in the tile and stone industry?
Seth Segura: Definitely. Coverings is the largest international tile and stone show in North America. It’s where the entire industry comes together. And we’ve got manufacturers, architects, interior designers, builders, distributors. They’re all here under one roof. What makes it really special is that it’s not just a product showcase for tile and stone, but it’s really this immersive, inspirational experience for everyone who attends. It’s part design expo, part cultural exchange, and part future forecast.
Adrian Tennant: Well, this is now the third year that Bigeye has been involved with Coverings. How has that relationship evolved since 2023?
Seth Segura: Yeah, in 2023, we were really going for a bolder, kind of more confident voice for the event. And that really set the tone for repositioning coverings back three years ago. By 2024, in Atlanta, we layered in a lot more immersion with the brand experience, bringing storytelling elements and kind of a deeper narrative structure to the brand. And this year, 2025, we’ve totally evolved again. It’s a brand new look and feel for the conference. We’re tapping into the origins of ceramics. So, earth, fire, air, and water, as a way of reconnecting with the materials. But we’re also amplifying the energy of the show with the sensory impact, the sense of discovery, and framing the star of the show, which is tile and stone, with our graphic identity.
Adrian Tennant: We are literally surrounded by your work here, actually at the event itself. Could you walk us through the process of developing this visual identity for Coverings 2025? What was your inspiration?
Seth Segura: Yeah, we actually started by going to hardware stores and tile expos and purchasing material and like getting our hands dirty. So I had a trowel in my hand and mortar, and just started playing around with stuff. The rest of our creative team, we all just experienced the tactile nature of the industry. And that was pretty much where we started. And from there, we built the visual identity using color, form, texture, graphic design systems. So you’ll notice green. It’s a very dynamic and dominant tone of this year’s show, which is opposite of what it was previously. And that’s a nod to sustainability, but also a nod to renewal and sophistication. So we were really going for like this calm, authoritative vibe that balances beautifully with the vibrancy of the show. And also warmer, natural palettes. We wanted to embrace that, that idea of calmness and soothing materials and bringing that into the branding of the show.
Adrian Tennant: Got it. Marc, your firm is internationally renowned and has worked on prestigious projects for brands like the Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis. How do you approach selecting materials for these luxury-branded residences?
Marc Thee: Well, I’d say we first start with wanting to understand our market. Who is the buyer? What do they do? What are they looking for? What is their age range? What are their interests? I’m so lucky because I have a team of individuals who are just full of ideas. We sit down at a table, we brainstorm, we bring some of our favorite new things to the table, which are found at places like Coverings, and we just share ideas. The overriding theme in everything we do right now is simplicity. People don’t want things to be complicated. People want things to be easy to take care of. People want things that are seamless and effortless and aren’t going to complicate getting from A to Z at all. So I feel like that’s the whole market is heading there. We look for hooks – and by hooks I mean that one thing that pops in an environment like each space. So what’s the hook? What’s the hook? What’s going to make it interesting? And what are people going to take away from this? And it might be the way something’s used or just one element that’s a little unexpected or new, maybe technology brings something into the system. But that’s kind of how we start. We just surround ourselves with a conversation and go from there.
Adrian Tennant: How do you see tile and stone being used differently in today’s luxury residential projects compared to five or ten years ago?
Marc Thee: I’d say the biggest change is orchestration. Five or 10 years ago, we were having inlays and borders and unique shifts of color block in our finishes in a production home, even in a luxury home. Now we are like so clean. You know, what’s interesting is we have a little bit of a litmus test, and we want things to be beautiful before they’re furnished because so much product is judged before it’s furnished. You know, we don’t rely on plants to create balance anymore. We just try to find real firm things within our reach that create proportion, comfort, and security. You have to have a sense of realizing that you’re in a safe place, in a comfortable place. So even our tile selections, they don’t box you in. There’s a unified feeling of where you start and stop finishes. The first thing we do is we eliminate clutter. In architecture, architecture can be bouncy and it can move from light to dark to light to dark to open to close to light to dark. One of the things we look at first of all is how to unify all those things. And so a large-format tile today, 24 by 24, 10 years ago, the large sweeping finishes that are so beautifully simple. I’m going to say that’s the biggest change from now till then.
Adrian Tennant: Well, of course, you developed a collection of tile patterns with Audrey Lane. Could you tell us about that collaboration and what inspired your designs?
Marc Thee: When I realized that my income was directly related to how much I could work, I realized that finding product development might be a good thing to consider because I didn’t want to work that long for the rest of my life and I still haven’t conquered that concept! But meeting Holly and Jennifer from Audrey Lane, they are such special ladies and their work is beautiful, and their dedication to introducing new products and finding new ways of thinking, and they’re brilliant. And aligning ourselves with them just began the floodgates of ideas. We felt that an organic foundation, which is always successful, I think, you try to stay within the things that are naturally comfortable for people. We don’t try to insert something that God didn’t make, even if he didn’t make it, it’s just things have been around and just used differently. I would say that the biggest element that we infused in our collection was positive energy. We had done a collection of carpet with Kyle Bunting, Hair on Hide. And I’m very proud to this day, it’s still – this was in 2018 – this is still his largest-selling collection to date. And it was all about my going through a little bit of a heartbreak and how I healed my heart and things like that. And so we decided to do something, don’t make it sad. Let’s make it all happy. Let’s make everything we design have a feel-good vibe. So the names of the tiles are like Fresh Start, Forward Thinking, Good Vibes, Only Happy Thoughts. And it’s funny, people start smiling when they see names like that. So that’s kind of where the whole thing came from, just a positive point of view.
Adrian Tennant: Love that. Carmina, it’s lovely to have you join us today. Now, I know you’re an independent interior designer, but with a multidisciplinary background. What are some of the most innovative products or materials that you’ve seen being exhibited here at Coverings?
Carmina Ozeata: I think a lot of what I’m seeing here isn’t necessarily new. I think that this has been in development for many years, especially the porcelains and ceramics with a little bit of like etching or a tactile sense to it. And I think that goes back to what Marc was saying, how you want to create a space that’s beautiful without the furnishings in it. And I think having these small details within the actual materials help create that environment. And like he was saying, these clean lines, and easy to take care of, I think they’re really being very innovative with how they are creating these material surfaces. There are some, though, that are fairly difficult to clean, I think, with the general population. Residential products like the extrusions, I’ve talked with colleagues saying, “This would be great in a space. How will we clean it? How will we tackle it? Is that going to be something that’s going to be difficult for the maintenance crews or just a regular person cleaning at home?” But I do like all of those new materials that they’re creating into 3D formats, making them and manufacturing them in such a way that it’s not technically structural, but still very hardy and can be used in multiple spaces. Except for the exterior, but…
Adrian Tennant: Are there any other particular exhibitors whose work really caught your attention this year?
Carmina Ozeata: If you have been walking this floor with me, I probably would have taken you to the Arcana area. They have created such a special tile design that they walked me through the entire process. They’re actually working with artisans. So they take paints and they create their own palettes for all the different lines that they have. And essentially, they create a pattern on the palette, and they hand trowel it. So they create these beautiful handmade designs that are, to me, it speaks very 60s, 70s type of era, but really modernized because what they do then is they digitally print it on tiles for mass production. So I just love the marriage of handmade, crafted, troweled feel, but made for everyone.
Adrian Tennant: Have you noticed any sustainable or eco-friendly innovations in the materials being showcased here? And I’ll start with you, Carmina.
Carmina Ozeata: I do know that sustainability is in such a forefront here at Coverings. We’re seeing small little pop-ups where they’re discussing how their factories can be sustainable, how their materials can be sustainable. What I do like is seeing implementation of the ISOs, so it’s standardizing how essentially they define sustainability. Because anything can be called sustainable or it used to be. Now there’s actual standards for factories for pushing those products. So I really like seeing that.
Adrian Tennant: Same question for you, Marc. Did you notice any particularly eco-friendly or sustainable innovations as you were walking the floor today?
Marc Thee: Well, I’m going to switch that question around a little bit because what I noticed more than anything was the text, and she commented on some of the textural elements and stuff. And how do you maintain those and blah, blah, blah. So that touches into your question, but it’s not exactly your question. Is it okay if I answer that?
Adrian Tennant: Of course!
Marc Thee: There’s a lot of vertical raking and breaking down of texture of the face of tiles, of marbles and stones, and I think that is exquisite. Now obviously that needs to be used on a vertical surface because you can’t walk on it, but I think that’s such a trend, that is such a huge sign of people thinking about tiles and marbles and stones being used a little bit more differently. To put your emphasis on things that are only on walls versus on floors, I think is interesting. It’s very indicative of where I think things are heading.
Adrian Tennant: Let’s take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message.
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Adrian Tennant: Welcome back to our conversation at Coverings 2025. Marc, as someone who’s designed luxury interiors for decades and, of course, created your own tile collection, as I noted earlier, what do you look for when exploring an event like Coverings?
Marc Thee: I guess the first thing is I want to be surprised by what technology allows them to manufacture now. I am blown away by the digital advances and the strength that they’re putting and fusing into man-made product and stuff. So you’re always looking for what is new from a technology standpoint, because it just blows your mind. Which then leads me back to my hooks. I’m always looking for, what are the fun new hooks I’m going to walk away with? This one inset, or this one feature wall, or this one thing that just makes me want to use it in a foyer with water. And all sorts of grand, wonderful ideas of how to be unique about it. It’s your splurge moments. So even though we’re looking for price points, I look for them in the extremes. I look for the affordable that we’ll use in a lot of quantity places, and then we’ll look for the extremely more expensive, and we’ll use that in just a little bit here, a little bit there, and create something, I think, unique. So that’s what we’re always looking for.
Adrian Tennant: How does coming to Coverings support your design practice?
Marc Thee: Well, by staying on top of those things, it’s all about inspiration. This show, I think, is the most inspiring show around, because it’s not every product under the sun to build a home. It’s very focused. It is one thing, and it is shown in every sense of the word. So it’s very focused. So coming here to Coverings give us a chance to use one of the most expensive things in a home. I mean, stone budgets can reach, you know, seven digits easily in some of our homes. And so you really have to decide where you’re putting those funds and how you’re going to use it. It’s a mix of affordable and expensive. And this show, it shows all of it to you. All of it.
Adrian Tennant: Carmina, same question for you. How does coming to an event like Covering support your design practice?
Carmina Ozeata: I think that Marc really hit the nail on the head with this show because it is so specific to the materials. When you’re coming here and you’re walking through such an immersive trade show floor, you’re walking into individual vendors, and you are just transported. So we were walking up and down Spain and Italy, and I really felt like I may actually be in these countries. There was a section that had a cute little vignette with a little bistro and a little Tulum-inspired lighting above it, and I felt really transported at that point. And going to places like Stone Peak, where they had an actual cafe set up inside, it was comfy, it was usable, and it was tactile, and it really immersed you into their products. So I know myself working with different clients that have many different needs. I felt really inspired to continue to design for all of these different clients that we have with different tastes and different budgets. There’s designs and ideas galore here.
Adrian Tennant: Seth, what about you? Were you inspired thinking about Coverings 2026 maybe?
Seth Segura: Yeah, well, I love just being immersed in this world. It’s outside of graphic design and what we normally do, but it’s still kind of a passion of mine. One of my favorite things that I saw was going back to technique. There was this really cool, I forget the name of the manufacturer, but the way that the effect was printed, it almost looked like it was backlit from behind, like onyx. And I was just in awe that that effect could be created in this way and project this aesthetic that was just absolutely beautiful. So I think I found a lot of inspiration on the show floor this year for next year’s brand. I feel a lot of our thought process was reinforced. We took a lot of old-world inspiration from classic tile motifs and modernized it in a way that could be utilized in an environment like this. And I did see a lot of old-world sort of influences, but the way that it’s scaled, the way that it’s applied, it feels modern and it feels fresh.
Adrian Tennant: Well, the one thing that we all have in common at this table is we all have clients. So Carmina, in your design approach, I know you do emphasize real collaboration with clients. How do you introduce them to innovative materials that you’ve discovered at events like this?
Carmina Ozeata: Um, I have a very cluttered SUV! What I like to do is I like to create reels for Instagram and social media that almost never see the light of day. However, like I said, walking around Coverings, I feel very inspired to do that. There’s just so many ways to present like some of these vignettes. How they’re pairing some of the porcelain with the textile and the trowel look and just using them in fun little reels or pop a trending audio. I am a micro-influencer! But that’s probably one of my favorite ways to do so because a lot of my clients do use social media, and they do like the different products that I introduce that way. Otherwise, I do bring them in my messy SUV.
Adrian Tennant: Marc, with your experience in both interior design and product development, as you mentioned, what advice would you give to designers looking to navigate the vast offerings of a show like Coverings?
Marc Thee: I would probably start by telling them don’t think like a designer because we get stuck in trying to find that exquisite, incredible thing and that would be a tragic thing to be too caught up in. You want things that are going to focus on easy to maintain, easy to fix, replace, and install, and easy to get, blah, blah, blah. Keeping it simple is where I would remind them of that we’ve talked about already. And I would make sure that they had a mindset of just being real about everything. Price points. Stay in your extremes. You’re super affordable. You’re more expensive. And because it is all here. I mean, you know, the, I don’t know if the vendors, if they wow you with that couple of products in the beginning of their spaces and draw you in, and then you can really see the full extent of what they do. Don’t judge by just walking past it. You really have to go inside and see what they’re offering. I mean, some of the booths are very kind of private. And I wonder what’s going on in there, you know? And I don’t know, others like, they let you just, they want to show you everything as you walk by. And then others have a very different approach. They want you to come in and experience it that way. So I don’t know which is the better. I’m probably missing a few things because sometimes I don’t take the time. If I don’t see something that immediately draws me, I tend to walk past it. So I need to allow the time to absorb something like this. If you’re in the market and if you are needing product, and needing to expose yourself to good product, you need to come to this show. And you need to take the time to walk it in its entirety and really take the time to kind of absorb it, because you will leave with a lot more than you came with.
Adrian Tennant: Carmina, I know you have a special affinity for renovating historic homes, particularly those of the 1950s and 1960s. I’m curious, have you seen products that would work particularly well in those kinds of restoration projects?
Carmina Ozeata: I’ve seen a resurgence in breeze blocks and just using new materials to recreate these breeze blocks. They aren’t structural, of course, however… I really am looking for a project that I would love to use those in. And the terracotta colors and the warm colors, those colors were not available in the 1950s or 60s for those breeze blocks. So I think that would be so much fun to bring into a project. There’s also a lot of graphic designs on some of these tiles.
Seth Segura: Yeah, we saw a lot of them.
Carmina Ozeata: Right. That are super fun, like Versace had, not everyone can afford Versace, but that’s the first one that came to mind. They had a little dog and just really fun, irreverent images.
Seth Segura: Yeah, very playful on the tile, yes.
Carmina Ozeata: So, I think that in a way is very in that era of, you know, a little bit playful and a little bit irreverent, but in a more modern scope.
Adrian Tennant: I always think one of the interesting things about shows like Coverings is it does always – for me – feel like it brings together this sort of artistic sensibilities, there’s a little bit of fashion, there’s obviously interior design, popular culture, they’re all in the mix. I’m curious, Marc and Carmina, you’ve both had the chance to walk the show. Would you offer a critique of Seth’s work on the branding of the show? Do you think he and his team got it right this year?
Marc Thee: I’ll speak. I’m blown away, Seth. I did not know you did that. And I often come to big shows and see the graphics and see the signage and see the hook and see how it’s all put together. And when he was speaking about the little bit more of the subtle approach, I’m blown away. He nailed it. I think his team nailed it. I think it’s the green is so anchoring and something that everybody’s familiar with and it feels right. So, congratulations.
Seth Segura: Thanks.
Carmina Ozeata: I mean, I think you understood the assignment because hearing you saying that you went to a hardware store and you got yourself a trowel, that is, you’re really getting it.
Marc Thee: I think you made that up.
Seth Segura: No, no. The light green texture, you’ll see it.
Adrian Tennant: I’ve seen the photos. They really did do it.
Seth Segura: Yeah. We had a great time designing this brand, and it’s just, it’s awesome to be a part of a show like this. It’s just one of our favorite clients to work with. So super happy. Thank you for those compliments.
Marc Thee: Absolutely.
Seth Segura: Can’t wait to see how this translates to Las Vegas next year. Excited to shift it just slightly and give it a little bit of a Vegas spin.
Adrian Tennant: Great conversation. Carmina, Marc, and Seth, thank you very much for being my guests this week on IN CLEAR FOCUS.
Marc Thee: Thank you.
Seth Segura: Thanks, Adrian.
Carmina Ozeata: Thanks for having us.
Adrian Tennant: Thanks again to my guests this week, Marc Thee, Design Principal of Marc-Michaels Interior Design, Carmina Ozaida, Principal of Carmina Marie Interior Design, and Seth Segura, Vice President and Creative Director at Bigeye. I’d also like to thank the event marketing team for hosting us at the Coverings 2025 podcast studio. As always, you’ll find a complete transcript of our conversation with timestamps and links to the resources we discussed on the IN CLEAR FOCUS page at Bigeyeagency.com. Just select Insights from the menu. Thank you for listening to IN CLEAR FOCUS, produced by Bigeye. I’ve been your host, Adrian Tennant. Until next week, goodbye.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00: Introduction to IN CLEAR FOCUS
00:24: Coverings 2025 Overview
01:07: Meet the Guests
02:35: What is Coverings?
03:17: Evolution of Bigeye’s Involvement
04:05: Developing Visual Identity for Coverings 2025
05:23: Selecting Materials for Luxury Design
06:22: Changes in Tile and Stone Usage
08:35: Marc’s Tile Collection with Audrey Lane
10:12: Innovative Products at Coverings
11:53: Sustainable Innovations in Materials
12:50: Marc’s Perspective on Textural Elements
14:20: Inspiration from Coverings
16:06: Navigating the Show for Designers
18:00: Client Collaboration and Innovative Materials
20:38: Advice for Designers at Coverings
23:20: Products for Historic Home Renovations
24:35: Artistic Sensibilities in Design
25:32: Feedback on Branding for Coverings
26:22: Conclusion and Thanks
