Want to See the New Letter Board? Look Down at Your Feet

Written by

Sarah Lyon
Sarah Lyon
Sarah Lyon is a freelance writer based in New York City who covers interior design and lifestyle content. She is constantly on the hunt for eye-catching pieces to add to her space and believes that a home is never truly finished being styled.
published Dec 19, 2019
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Credit: Letterfolk

Felt letter boards have been majorly on-trend for the past five years or so. And while we’ll never truly tire of brainstorming clever quotes and punny phrases to put on them, writing words in tile is coming for the title of coolest letter trend. I mean, who among us hasn’t ooh-ed and ahh-ed over a tile quote on the floor of a store or restaurant? Even one of Anthropologie’s best selling tabletop collections is a riff on the combination of “tile” work and letters. 

While most of us don’t have the ability to create a permanent tile quote installation in our own bathroom, kitchen, or entry, we can do the next best thing—which is snagging one of these tile mats from Letterfolk. The vintage-inspired hex “tiles” are made out of flexible, rubber-like vinyl, and you can snap individual black or colored caps over the white mat base of “tiles” to create a word, phrase, or design. After introducing this concept on Kickstarter earlier this year, the response was so overwhelming that the mat was funded in just seven minutes. Letterfolk is now sold out for 2019 and is currently accepting pre-orders that will begin shipping in January, but they’ve even made a downloadable card available, should you want to gift a pre-ordered one to someone for the holiday season.

Credit: Letterfolk

Once you’ve picked a size (The standard is $75 and holds 150 “tiles,” while a large has 200 and costs $100) and you finally get your mat in hand, you can go to town customizing it as you please, as often as you want. These mats would look equally awesome in an entry, bathroom, kitchen, or dorm room. And we love that you can easily change the message depending on your mood—because who isn’t a little indecisive every now and then? You can also purchase additional colored cap add-ons, so you have lots of options for creating a custom look. There’s even an online tile mat design tool to help you digitally plan your designs before executing them in real life. Genius.

Need some styling inspiration to hold you over until your mat ships? Us, too. Take a look at some of our favorite Letterfolk Instagram pics below. They’re from the lucky few who managed to get their hands on the first batch of mats.

The $75 to $100 price tag may sound steep, but if you get into changing out your doormat seasonally, it might be well worth the money to invest in one of these, plus some additional tiles.

You can go with traditional block lettering or switch it up with a more stylized font. I also love the addition of the terracotta tiles here. They make this design extra, well, toasty and warm.

These mats truly are perfect for a bathroom or another wet space like a laundry room or mud room. Because the “tiles” and caps are made of vinyl, they’re probably a safer bet than ceramic, which can be slippery.

And finally, if you’re not the literary type, you can go with a more abstract design. So what do you think—are tile mats the new letter boards?