Destination Travel Services × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Destination Travel Services has been planning trips out of Clear Lake, Iowa for more than thirty years, an agency with a “small town touch” in its own words and a second desk down in Sarasota, Florida. The site banner says “WE DO GREAT VACATIONS” and means it plainly. The work runs from family vacations to destination weddings and vow renewals, all of it aimed at bringing a client's dream trip to life while saving them time and money along the way.
What stopped us was the mark. Warm gold calligraphy on a black field, the capitals swashed long over a broad underline flourish. Symmetrical scrollwork frames the name above and below. Gold script on black is the oldest luxury language travel has; steamer trunks wore it on hotel labels a century before anyone booked online. A mark like this was practically drawn for leather.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
The name runs the length of the tag, ornament and all. We went back and forth on the small letterspaced line beneath it, “CUSTOM TRAVEL DESIGNERS,” because at die scale that spacing closes up and the words turn to texture; in the end we let the line rest and trusted the calligraphy to carry the claim. Dark espresso follows the near-black field of the original, and gray-sand follows the warm pale gold of its lettering. Black takes the name in gold foil.
“WE DO GREAT VACATIONS”
Two addresses give the agency a line from Iowa lake country to the Florida Gulf, and the companion design draws the trip between them: a flight arc lifting off a rippled lake and settling toward a single palm, above “WE DO GREAT VACATIONS” in their own capitals. Pressed lengthwise again, since an arc wants room to travel.
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 Destination Travel Services and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.