Three leather luggage-tag studies for Battelle
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world organizations.
A July study.
Applied science in ordinary objects
Battelle is an independent applied science and technology nonprofit whose mission is to translate discovery into societal benefit. Its work spans health, environment, infrastructure, national security, laboratory management, and STEM education, which makes any single science icon feel far too narrow.
The established identity offers a more disciplined device: two decisive horizontal bars around a heavy wordmark. These studies separate that geometry from the trademark and put it to work. A second route draws from Battelle's documented history in the development of barcode scanning, expressed as an everyday action rather than a claim of ownership.
The audience could be employees, project teams, leadership cohorts, or visiting collaborators. Each design recognizes the human accumulation behind technical work.
Leather and treatment
Poppy Red and Caramel carry blind debosses; Black carries warm gold. The rectangular forms are deliberately stout, with enough open space for reliable stamping.
The three concepts
1. The Bookends
Two heavy bookends hold five mismatched volumes, one leaning. The end pieces inherit the proportion of Battelle's bars, rotated upright and assigned a useful job. The immediate picture is accumulated knowledge kept in order; the second read connects that patient shelf to decades of multidisciplinary research.
2. Two Steps Up
A person climbs two broad, staggered steps. Their rise comes from the diagonal relationship of the two bars in the identity. The image is plain enough for employee recognition and specific enough to suggest progress made through applied work rather than abstract ambition.
3. The Apple Scan
A handheld scanner casts a beam onto an apple. It recalls the practical moment when barcode technology moved into an ordinary checkout line, while avoiding an actual code or proprietary lockup. The apple makes the benefit human-scale: research becomes something people use without thinking about the laboratory behind it.
These are independent design studies for appropriate team, partner, collaborator, member, or client occasions. No affiliation or endorsement is implied. Every image is a render used to test the object before cutting a physical die.
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.
If you're Battelle and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.