22 Jun 2015

A Visit to the Heath Factory

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Even though Mandi and I have been living in the Bay Area for almost two years now, there is still so much for us to explore so we typically save some time on the weekends for us to get together to do things that we love to do like hipster wedding expos, for example! This trip, however, was a very special one. Heath Ceramics was something that I learned about from my former manager when I first started working in California and a thing that I now find I should be working towards saving my money for! They are some of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever seen! Since Mandi is newly engaged and planning every aspect and detail of her wedding, we sort of decided (or I suggested) that she should DEFINITELY be putting these on her registry. There’s really no better time to be asking for these. We decided though that we needed to take a closer look though so we signed up for a free tour so that we could learn more about Heath and see the factory for ourselves.

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Inside the space, you’ll find a Blue Bottle Coffee stand (yes!) and a store full of Heath goodies – plates, vases, bowls, cups – everything you could think of all in the prettiest pastel shades.

The tour was an hour long and spread across two floors in the building. While the main space belongs mainly to Heath, there are other parts of the building that belong to other people making it a very collaborative space. We even got to see a section where they hold events and feature up-and-coming artists. Very hip.

It was pretty interesting to learn how the different tiles were made, the intricate processes that they implement to make sure that every piece is the way that it should be, and how a lot of it is just done manually! I think that was probably the most fascinating part to me because it takes so much patience and attention to detail to do what these people do. Another one of my favorite parts of the tour was going upstairs to see the creative studio – no pictures allowed unfortunately! – because this is where the designers create new pieces that could be implemented in a future line.

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We couldn’t resist. How pretty are these tiles though?!

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Tours are held on Saturdays and Sundays at 11:30 AM and you can learn more information here to sign up for the exact tour we went on!

Posted on June 22, in Design