Black Sheep Travels × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Black Sheep Travels is a full-service luxury travel advisory in Westport, Connecticut, where Andrea Strahl and Betsy Berman plan everything from a weekend getaway to a trip of a lifetime. Their site opens on the line “escape the ordinary,” and they describe what they do as “relationships, experiences, memories.” The two work as independent affiliates of Travel Experts, a Virtuoso member, which is the quiet machinery behind the promise.
What drew us in was the mark. A black sheep is already the outlier of the flock; theirs has grown one great feathered wing and is caught mid-leap, legs tucked, clearing the frame entirely. Beneath it sit wide-tracked geometric capitals, patient where the sheep is airborne. A logo that draws its own metaphor this cleanly is rare, and it asked for leather almost before we did.
The mark, as found
Pressed
We pressed the winged sheep and the wordmark into a deep forest green pulled from the lodge and landscape photography that fills their pages, and into a pale gray sand matching the black-on-white calm of their editorial identity. Black with gold foil is the automatic third, and the wing carries the foil well. The small registered symbol beside SHEEP stays off the die.
Escape the ordinary
For the companion we took the headline at its word. Three sheep wait in a queue behind a fence; a fourth, dark, has already cleared it, caught at the top of the jump above the words ESCAPE THE ORDINARY. We tried a version with the gate standing open and it read as permission, which is the wrong story; the fence stays shut and the dark one simply goes over. The tag runs lengthwise so the jump has room.
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 Black Sheep Travels and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.