Veronica Ditting’s collection of tiny tomes is a big draw at London's Tenderbooks

There is a profound power in the miniature. The smaller something becomes, the more appealing we tend to find it – an extrapolation of the phenomenon ethologist Konrad Lorenz named ‘baby schema’, in which features commonly seen in human babies and young animals that trigger an innate caregiving response, tapping into our need for comfort, identity, connection and control. For the London-based creative director Veronica Ditting, this influence manifests as a lifelong predilection for tiny books.

‘My parents owned a stack of thumb dictionaries – German–Italian, French–Spanish and others,’ recalls Ditting, whose eponymous studio works with fashion houses, artists and art institutions. ‘Always handy to be taken on holidays. A few of them ended up in my belongings and they were the starting point of my collection, which I’ve slowly built up over the years.’ The collection, which now spans more than a century of works, came to the attention of London-based writer and Wallpaper* contributing editor Dal Chodha and the team at independent London bookshop Tenderbooks, who asked Ditting if she might be interested in exhibiting them in the store.

The exhibition, named ‘Small Print’, unfolds across the shop’s window vitrines, where visitors can peek at just over 100 rare miniature books from Ditting’s collection, which are ordinarily scattered around her studio. The oldest is The Thumb Dictionary by David Bryce from the 1890s – a ‘marvel of compactness’ printed on ultra lightweight paper – while the smallest is The Lord’s Prayer (1952), a 5x5 mm leather-bound volume printed using a specialist letterpress technique and legible only with a magnifying glass. ‘It’s the most extreme example of craftsmanship at its best,’ Ditting says. ‘The typography on the pages is only visible with a magnifying glass, but it’s razor-sharp.’

Given their scale, craftsmanship plays an important role in most of the books: the printing, binding and finishing of tiny pages is often far more complicated than in larger publications. ‘Whether a publication is a one-off or a higher print run, how it is made is key to the process,’ says Ditting, who has included a facsimile of one of the letterpress elements used in printing as part of the display at Tenderbooks. The magic, she says, lies in the execution – and it is this sense of wonder and intrigue that the exhibition seeks to capture.

Tamsin Clark, director of Tenderbooks, worked with Ditting to select several newly published miniature titles for the display. ‘We wanted to show examples of contemporary publishing where the sense of scale has been very thoughtfully considered,’ she says, reflecting on a selection that spans experimental writing, artists’ books and photography, as well as a number of rare treasures.

Among them is a tiny reader on colour theory and the science of salmon farming published by Isolarii. ‘This publisher of miniature books takes its name and form from practices in the Venetian Renaissance, where small-scale publications were referred to as 'Islands' for a single idea,’ she informs. Another highlight is a tiny photobook that masquerades as a packet of cigarettes – Until Death Do Us Part by Thomas Sauvin – featuring found photographs of couples smoking at weddings in China, where it is considered a good luck custom. ‘The book is tucked inside a real cigarette pack from the Double Happiness brand that’s typically gifted at weddings,’ Clark says. ‘Here the sense of scale is perfectly considered – form follows content.’

Ditting, an avid collector of unusual printed matter of all scales – her wider archive includes everything from 1970s medicinal brochures and packaging to conceptual art publications – says her miniature books sparked an early fascination with scale and tactility that continues to shape her design practice today. ‘I always consider and study the question of scale and ratio when starting a new project,’ she explains. ‘I ask myself what feels appropriate for the content and how best to activate it. Consequently, understanding how to make a viewer connect with the printed piece is integral to my design process.’

Some of these projects are included in the display, such as the pocket-sized invitation Ditting created for the launch of Rouge Brillant Silky, a lipstick by Hermès Beauty. The 94x54 mm invitation echoed a larger publication introducing the product, but in the miniature version, the lips in the photographs are kept life-sized. ‘The way you hold it and interact with it adds an extra layer of engagement to the experience,’ she says.

In 2019, to celebrate a decade of The Gentlewoman – where Ditting served as creative director from 2019 to 2021 – she produced a miniature compendium of cover stories. ‘This idea was directly inspired by my collection of miniature books and is an example of how to energise material,’ she says. ‘The thought of, say, producing a monograph for the magazine’s milestone felt too easy.’

Miniatures have been appearing elsewhere in the design world too, from The World of Interiors’ tiny December issue to Svenskt Tenn’s dollhouse-scale fabrics and furnishings. For Ditting, it’s part of a wider moment in which designers are reconsidering scale, tactility and the intimacy of how we hold and read objects. ‘While I’ve been collecting and making miniature publications for many years, I’ve never seen such a surge – especially this season, when interest seems to have accelerated noticeably.’

Her own collection of miniatures extends into paintings, ceramics and scale models – a constellation of small things that serve as a reminder that shrinking something down can also expand the way we see it.

Small Print will be on display at Tenderbooks, 6 Cecil Court, London, WC2N 4HE until 6 January 2026.

tenderbooks.co.uk