Alaska Travel Connections × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Alaska Travel Connections is a small company in Wasilla, Alaska, that builds customized Alaska vacations for independent travelers and small groups. The story behind it turns on a bargain. In 1985, owner Isabelle Bornemann's geologist father promised her a trip to Hawaii if she would first come see him in Anchorage. She came. By 1994 she had left Europe altogether and made Alaska home, working in tourism and guiding before building a business around personalized itineraries – lodges and routes the team has checked firsthand, small groups steered off the beaten circuit. “Alaska is our home,” they say, and the itineraries read like it.
The mark is what put it on our bench. Their seal is a deep charcoal circle with a scalloped edge, the sort of border that turns up on notary embossers and old steamer-trunk labels. A dotted ring and a thin solid one sit just inside that edge. Around the perimeter the full name runs in spaced white capitals, with two small diamonds marking where it repeats. Huge condensed ATC letters fill the center. A seal like this is already half a stamp; it wants pressure the way a passport page wants ink.
The mark, as found
Pressed
We had half talked ourselves into a glacier blue before the live site corrected us; the one loud color it actually uses is a vivid pink. So fuchsia takes up their #FB2056 action color, and country gray sits close to the seal's own charcoal. Black, as ever, carries the seal in gold.
We plan. You connect.
Alaska flies the Big Dipper on its flag, and the company's line is “We plan. You connect.” The companion design takes both at their word. The seven stars become a numbered connect-the-dots; points one through four are already joined, and five through seven wait for whoever takes the trip. The tagline sits beneath.
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're Alaska Travel Connections and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.