Cranberry Town – a leather collection for Cranbury, New Jersey

A September study – Volume I-A.

Cranbury, New Jersey began where the Great Post Road crossed Cranbury Brook. A gristmill stood at the crossing by 1741, and Main Street grew up around the mill site at walking scale. This small collection, Cranberry Town, presses that story into leather.

First, we set Main Street itself along the luggage tags. Five unlike fronts from the street's own record share one baseline – the plain Gristmiller's House opens the row and the Cranbury Inn's full-width porch closes it – with CRANBURY beneath. The pale warm greige tag takes the color of village clapboard, the navy one the cobalt of local stoneware; the third is deep wine, the color of old brick.

Black-and-white Main Street facade stamp artwork reading MAIN STREET and CRANBURY for the Cranberry Town leather collection.

A gray-sand leather luggage tag blind-stamped with five Main Street facades and CRANBURY.

A blueberry navy leather luggage tag blind-stamped with five Main Street facades and CRANBURY.

A sangria wine-red leather luggage tag blind-stamped with five Main Street facades and CRANBURY.

Next, the mark that explains the town. On the keychain fob the Post Road runs straight through a ring and the brook wavers across it; where they meet, a little plank bridge, under the word CRANBURY.

Black-and-white road-over-brook crossing stamp artwork reading CRANBURY and NEW JERSEY for the Cranberry Town leather collection.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather – in warm tan and in deep green.

A caramel leather keychain blind-stamped with the Cranbury road-and-brook crossing mark.

A forest-green leather keychain blind-stamped with the Cranbury road-and-brook crossing mark.

The same crossing rides low in the corner of the dopp kits, warm mid-gray over chestnut.

Two country-gray and Sicilian-brown leather dopp kits blind-stamped with the Cranbury crossing mark.

Then, a millstone for the journals. The mill at the brook ground the township's grain for over a century, and we dressed the stone's furrows around three words – GRIST FOR THE MILL – because a journal is where everything is carried before it becomes anything.

Black-and-white millstone stamp artwork reading GRIST FOR THE MILL for the Cranberry Town leather collection.

It sits low in the right corner, in honeyed russet and in deep brown.

An Indian Summer leather journal blind-stamped with a millstone reading GRIST FOR THE MILL.

A dark-espresso leather journal blind-stamped with a millstone reading GRIST FOR THE MILL.

And finally, the one we liked the most. In 1789 a road survey made for George Washington counted twenty-five buildings in Cranberry Town – the whole village on one sheet. We drew all twenty-five along the road and the brook on the golden tan catchall tray, so the town that once held twenty-five buildings now holds your keys.

Black-and-white survey-like road, brook, and house stamp artwork reading CRANBERRY TOWN and 1789.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

An Arizona golden-tan leather catchall tray blind-stamped with the Cranberry Town 1789 survey-like plan.

We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.

If you'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.

P.S.

An alternate gray leather luggage-tag rendering of the Main Street and CRANBURY stamp.

An alternate gray leather luggage-tag rendering of the Main Street and CRANBURY stamp.

An alternate two-bag rendering of the Cranbury road-and-brook crossing stamp.

An alternate Arizona leather catchall-tray rendering of the Cranberry Town 1789 plan.