De’Longhi Just Turned 5 Coffee Machines Into Tiny Cafés

Posted on 15/04/2026 by Ida Torres

If you’re a coffee lover, chances are you’re also a fan of going to coffee shops. While most die-hard connoisseurs would probably prefer to make a cup for themselves, apparently 72% of consumers still believe that the best coffee can only be made in a café, by actual experts who trained for it (well, unless you did train as an actual barista and have the complete equipment at home).

De’Longhi wanted to show that you can have café-quality coffee at home, and they did it in the most charming, unexpected way possible: by turning their machines into miniature versions of the world’s most iconic cafés. The campaign is called “The World’s Smallest Coffee Shop,” developed in partnership with creative agency LOLA Madrid and brought to life by master miniaturist Simon Weisse and his collaborator Cindy Schnitter. Weisse is no stranger to creating miniature movie magic; he is best known for his work with director Wes Anderson on films like The Grand Budapest Hotel and Asteroid City, where his tiny, hand-crafted worlds became just as iconic as the stories themselves.

Designer: Simon Weisse and Cindy Schnitter for De’Longhi

The idea was simple yet brilliant: create five intricate, handcrafted miniature café façades and mount them directly onto De’Longhi’s bean-to-cup coffee machines. Each of these five miniature coffee shops is inspired by an iconic global coffee culture city and paired with an elite De’Longhi machine:

Paris mounted on the Rivelia
Tokyo mounted on the Magnifica Evo Next
Milan mounted on the Eletta Ultra
Copenhagen mounted on the Eletta Explore
Berlin mounted on the Primadonna Aromatic

It’s not just a simple miniature, of course, given the credentials of the designers and their team. Each piece was hand-built over 1,500 hours total using traditional model-making techniques by specialist model makers. They incorporated architectural textures, aged finishes, and intricate detailing, including tiny windows and miniature signage, just as if they were crafting a set for a major film production. The level of care poured into every surface and every tiny detail is nothing short of extraordinary.

What makes this campaign particularly compelling is the signature technique Weisse’s studio brings to the table: “forced perspective,” the same cinematic method used on film sets to make miniature environments appear life-sized and completely believable. When De’Longhi approached the studio, Weisse immediately recognized an opportunity to apply this storytelling craft to something most of us interact with every single morning: a coffee machine. The goal wasn’t just to create something beautiful to look at, but to shift the way we think about where great coffee truly comes from.

The result is nothing short of a collector’s dream. Looking at each machine, it’s hard not to imagine yourself sitting at a tiny cobblestoned café in Paris, warming your hands around a bowl of café au lait, or perched on a Tokyo street corner, breathing in the scent of a perfectly pulled espresso. The detail is so immersive and so deliberate that the machine stops being an appliance and becomes an experience, or rather, an entire world in miniature.

The campaign made its stunning debut at Milan Design Week 2026, one of the most prestigious design events in the world, where all five machines were showcased together for the very first time. And the timing couldn’t be more fitting: in a world where home has become our office, our restaurant, and our gym, why shouldn’t it also be our favorite café?

De’Longhi CMO Aparna Sundaresh summed it up beautifully: “The café hasn’t just been miniaturised; it has been brought home.” Whether you’re a collector drawn to the artistry, a coffee lover chasing the perfect cup, or simply someone who appreciates craftsmanship that makes you stop and stare, The World’s Smallest Coffee Shop is a masterclass in how great design can transform the everyday into something truly extraordinary, one tiny façade at a time.

The post De’Longhi Just Turned 5 Coffee Machines Into Tiny Cafés first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEGO-like modular dollhouse lets you build the miniature home of your dreams

Posted on 16/10/2024 by JC Torres

It’s pretty amazing how many things you can make if you’re given the right tools and materials. LEGO blocks have inspired creativity and shaped minds for generations in the physical world, while sandbox games like Minecraft have pulled the same feat in the digital world. These two creative platforms, in turn, have inspired many other toys and experiences that try to bring this freedom of creation to other designs. This particular design concept, for example, has a similar vibe to LEGO but caters to the young and young at heart who want to build their ideal doll houses.

Designers: Gavin Portillo, Mario Ledo

LEGO blocks started out as literal block-shaped pieces that you could combine in different ways to create structures, animals, vehicles, and anything your mind can imagine. More specialized pieces came later on that somewhat deviated from squares and rectangles, including wheels and gears, but the overall aesthetic remained the same. The same is true with the game Minecraft, where you can build almost anything imaginable, such as a primitive computer, but still look blocky overall.

BLUID-IT is a design concept that tries to expand those shapes to allow for more expressive combinations. The goal, however, isn’t just to build anything but to build dollhouses specifically. There are already plenty of dollhouses, most of them designed for kids, that allow a bit of customization, but you can only use what comes with the package, or maybe buy some additional accessories. And almost all of them revolve around a specific theme or style.

But what if you had hundreds of small objects to choose from, ranging from pillars to spiral staircases to magnetic walls? You can, in theory, build almost any house interior possible, one that can even span more than just a single level. No two houses would be identical, unless you intentionally copied, of course, allowing greater freedom in designing the perfect living space for miniature people.

It’s not completely free-form, though. The aluminum platforms and walls have perforations where you can insert tiny walls, furniture, and other pieces. This makes the design easier to use for younger audiences, giving them some guidelines to follow. It may even be useful as a tool for interior designers or architects, giving them a quick and easy way to create models for their desired arrangements as well.

The post LEGO-like modular dollhouse lets you build the miniature home of your dreams first appeared on Yanko Design.

Miniature digital camera lets you add filters to your media

Posted on 15/03/2024 by Ida Torres

In the middle of a concert where I was surrounded by Gen Z and younger millennials, I noticed that what some of the kids were using to take photos and videos were not their smartphones but digital cameras. That’s when I realized that the adage that “everything old is new again” is still very much true and that the younger generation was discovering gadgets that my generation thought was already dead. We’re seeing brands come up with different variants of digital cameras and now we’re seeing what might be the smallest yet.

Designer: Kenko Tokina

The Pieni M may seem like a toy at first given its tiny size but it’s actually a fully functional miniature digital camera. The name itself, Pieni, is actually the Finnish word for “small” even though the brand is Japanese. Lest you think that it’s just purely for aesthetic purposes, the tiny camera lets you take photos and videos and can even give you filters to make your multimedia look even more hipster than you initially intended. It looks like just any regular camera except that it’s a miniature version.

The camera even has an LCD display that can show you what it is you’re actually taking a photo or video of. Well, given its size, you may have to squint a bit to be able to fully see what’s on the screen. There is a button on the side that lets you switch between video recording and photographing. And if you’re using it for the former, you can actually record voices and ambient sounds. It also has a feature that gives your photos a watercolor-like look or you can use the other filters available including monochrome, orange, blue, or green.

The device is small enough for regular hands to hold it between your two fingers. There’s a USB port so you can easily transfer your media to your laptop or tablet or you can save it on a microSD card for easy storage and transfer. The Pieni M is available in black or grayish blue but it would also be nice to have it in other cuter colors eventually. Personally, I’d probably still use my smartphone to take photos or videos for better quality but if I wanted something more hipster, then this would be a good device to have.