Bon Voyage Travel Leaders × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Bon Voyage Travel Leaders books travel out of Grand Forks, North Dakota, and has been at it long enough to describe itself as a leading Midwest agency. Their pages run from resort honeymoons to escorted group departures, with Disney holding a corner of its own, and the promise underneath is old-fashioned aftercare: consultants who have walked the resorts they recommend, and a phone that still answers after the sale. We liked that promise. The reason this mark landed on our bench is simpler, though. The agency is named for the send-off itself, the phrase said at the exact moment a journey begins, and a luggage tag is the one object that hears it every time.
The badge is halfway to a luggage tag already. A light-blue rectangle carries BON VOYAGE in a leaning dark-blue italic, with TRAVEL LEADERS set smaller beneath. A small red airplane climbs right through that lower line, which is the kind of detail a stamp loves. There is a fine-print tagline along the bottom edge, and we spent an evening trying to hold onto it. At stamp depth its letters closed up into a smudge, so we let it go, a little reluctantly.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
Turquoise answers the badge's light-blue field, and blueberry sits where the dark italic wordmark lives. Black is the automatic third and carries the gold. We ran the full wordmark with its climbing airplane lengthwise, the way a tag actually rides a handle.
The send-off
Before jet bridges, bon voyage was said from piers, and the waving was done with handkerchiefs. Our companion design catches one in mid-flutter above BON VOYAGE, set portrait so the cloth has room to fall. It is the gesture the agency's name has been quoting all along.
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 Bon Voyage Travel Leaders and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.