The Crooked Lake Collection × Leatherius Woodman – a Penn Yan, New York leather study

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world logos.

An August study.

Penn Yan, New York, sits where Keuka Lake forks into its Y and the old Outlet slips east toward Seneca. We spent August pressing that geography into leather – a small collection for the ridge between the two lakes.

We named it THE CROOKED LAKE COLLECTION, after the name Keuka wore on the old maps and on the 1833 canal. First, we drew the lake itself – two arms opening north and the crooked stem bending south, with Bluff Point standing white between the arms. The small open circle at the tip of the east arm is Penn Yan.

The Crooked Lake stamp plate traces Keuka Lake's Y shape for the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

Pressed small on the keychains it looks genuinely beautiful – one fob in warm barn red, the other in navy.

Red and navy leather keychains carry Keuka Lake's Y shape in the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

Next, we gave the same lake room – at generous size in the golden tan catchall tray, and small in the corner of the toiletry bags, navy over deep brown like lake water over barn wood.

A golden tan leather catchall tray holds the Crooked Lake design from Penn Yan, New York.

Two leather toiletry bags are pressed with the Crooked Lake design from Penn Yan, New York.

Then, the corridor. From Keuka's fork the Outlet falls east through six miles of old mill country to Seneca – we drew it as a line dropping in mill-dam steps from one lake to the other, THE OUTLET RUNS EAST beneath. On a luggage tag the whole corridor runs the length of the leather, one tag in navy for the water and one in golden tan for the straw.

The Outlet Runs East stamp plate links the two lakes in the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather. The black tag carries the stamp in gold.

Three leather luggage tags trace the outlet between the lakes in the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

And finally, SATURDAY. We set a sprig of buckwheat, the grain that made Penn Yan a milling town, above the one word the week points toward – a journal is where the market-day list gets written. One journal in deep green, the other in pale warm greige.

A buckwheat sprig rises over Saturday in a stamp plate from the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

Two leather journals carry a buckwheat sprig and Saturday from the Crooked Lake Collection of Penn Yan, New York.

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 reading this from between the lakes and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.