Enlightened Journeys Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Enlightened Journeys Travel is Theresa Jackson’s practice in Allendale, New Jersey, where she advises on luxury travel with sustainability written into the job description. She holds that every journey should be life-changing and that travel done well can do the planet some good, and she keeps traveling herself so the advice stays first-hand, a habit she compresses into “#GlobalLocal”. In 2017 she was chosen as an Ambassador of Change for a global sustainable-tourism initiative, which tells you how long she has been at this.
Her mark is what asked for the study. It is an antique key drawn long, a small round medallion holding an interlocked EJ at the bow while thin serif capitals run the shaft, reading ENLIGHTENED JOURNEYS TRAVEL. Near the bit the line opens into a diamond lattice. A key wants to hang from something, and a luggage tag was the obvious answer.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
The source file we found stands seventy pixels tall, and at that size those serif capitals are nearly hairlines, so before pressing anything we redrew the whole lockup at die resolution, keeping every angle of the lattice where she put it. Deep forest green follows the identity’s muted olive-sage into the leather, and pale gray-sand keeps the ground as quiet as her own pages keep theirs. Black carries the gold foil, which flatters a key rather more than the olive original strictly asks for; we kept it anyway.
Every journey, life-changing
For the companion we looked through the keyhole. A sunrise climbs inside the classic keyhole silhouette, above the words EVERY JOURNEY LIFE CHANGING, set portrait so the tag hangs like a small door with light behind it. If the lockup is her key, this is the view it opens onto.
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 Enlightened Journeys Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.