Bluntzer Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Bluntzer Travel is Anne Bluntzer's practice, and she came to it the long way round. Her résumé runs through Capitol Hill and the office of Secretary of State James A. Baker III; in 2007 she joined Ker & Downey as an Africa specialist, and in 2017 Brownell accepted her as an independent affiliate. The official count stands at more than 89 countries over 47 years. Twenty-nine of her tours have gone through Africa alone. She describes each client engagement as a puzzle whose pieces she assembles into an extraordinary experience, a line we will come back to. Our own ledger places her in San Antonio; we hold that entry loosely, as the entry is ours alone.
The mark is what asked for the study. At its left a serif B sits inside two thin concentric rings with four short cardinal ticks, a device that reads as a rifle scope to one eye and a compass rose to the other; either way it says aimed. Letterspaced capitals follow in a tailored line. The small words beneath, “exclusive luxury adventures”, we set aside for the tag, because at stamp scale a line that fine fills in solid. A travel firm with a genuinely owned device is a rarer sight than it ought to be, and this one was drawn as if someone hoped it would be pressed someday.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
We ran the lockup lengthwise, the ringed B leading the capitals down the tag. Deep forest green and pale gray-sand make the brand pair, the green deepening her olive B toward woodland while the sand does the job her white space does on the site. Black with gold foil closes the set. Concentric rings love foil; the gold pools in the circles and the B glows at center.
The last piece
Anne's puzzle line, taken at its word. One bold circle for the globe, quartered by two seams, each seam carrying a single round knob. The upper-right piece is missing, and it floats just off the rim at two o'clock, turned a few degrees and cut as the exact mirror of its gap, so the eye snaps it home before the mind has finished reading. Every field is blank; the seams carry the whole joke. Beneath the globe stands one word, EXTRAORDINARY, which is hers.
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 Bluntzer Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.