The art of faience tile making had found its way from Arabic North Africa from where it had slowly progressed northward via Spain, Italy (mainly the city of Faenza, hence the French 'faience') and Antwerp to arrive about 1570 in the northern Dutch province of Friesland. The Royal Tichelaar Makkum from which the designs in this book originate is the oldest enterprise in the Netherlands and indeed ranks it among the oldest companies in the world. Many of the designs this factory has been using over the years have been compiled in an ancient volume kept in the historical collection of their archives, along with many examples of actual antique tiles. For the first time a selection of these has now been made available for publication in this book. The designs in this book come from the archives of the Royal Tichelaar Makkum ceramic factory. Royal Tichelaar Makkum was founded in 1572 and is the oldest continuously operating factory in the Netherlands - and one of the oldest in the world. The factory's archive contains countless designs and actual tiles made in the factory's 400+ years in operation. For the first time in this book, a selection of these designs has been made available to the public. This book contains stunning images for use as a graphic resource, or inspiration. All the illustrations are stored in high-resolution format on the enclosed free CD-ROM and are ready to use for professional quality printed media and web page design. The pictures can also be used to produce postcards, or to decorate your letters, flyers, etc. They can be imported directly from the CD into most design, image-manipulation, illustration, word-processing and e-mail programmes; no installation is required. The images can be used free of charge, up to a maximum of ten images per application.