Laminates primary purpose is to provide a decorative skin and in that sense every type of laminate is a decorative laminate. Decorative laminates come in wide variety of color , designs and textures and also in different thickness. Typical sheet size is 4’x8’ in most cases. Decorative laminates are high pressure laminates made by bonding of decorative paper under heat and high pressure with the help of resins. The upper layer is decorative and hence the core or sides of a typical laminate is black in color. There are other categories of laminates that have a certain specialty feature in terms of functionality like abrasion resistance, colored core etc. . Please refer other  categories to know more about them .