Three leather luggage-tag studies for BNY
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world organizations.
An August study.
Heritage with a forward edge
BNY combines a long institutional history with infrastructure built for today's financial system. Its refined 2024 identity gives that tension a compact visual form: strong letter construction and a folded, forward-pointing arrow.
These studies avoid the familiar vocabulary of finance—coins, columns, charts, and seals. Instead, small pieces of the identity become useful, recognizable objects. The arrow folds into a bookmark; the B's counters become windows; the N's structural skeleton becomes a span.
On luggage tags, the concepts could mark team milestones, innovation programs, leadership gatherings, partner occasions, or travel connected to the firm's international work.
Leather and treatment
Each concept appears identically on three dark and warm leather tones. Blind deboss and quiet foil keep the mark-derived geometry discreet enough for a personal travel object.
The three concepts
1. The Marked Page
A closed hardcover book carries a long ribbon bookmark. The ribbon's pointed, folded end reworks BNY's forward arrow vertically: a place held in a 240-year story, with the next page still ahead.
2. The Little Carriage
A small railway carriage has two square windows. Their proportions and spacing come from the twin counters in the B of the current wordmark, rotated into a travel object that reads cleanly before its typographic origin is noticed.
3. Bridge With One Stay
Two pylons and one diagonal stay form a simple bridge over water. That vertical-diagonal-vertical structure comes from the skeleton of BNY's N, making connection literal without leaving a readable letter on the leather.
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 BNY and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.