The Flat Hill Collection – a Boerum Hill, Brooklyn leather study

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

An August study.

Boerum Hill keeps its best stories close: a hill that lies perfectly level, and a railway tunnel asleep under its busiest avenue. We pressed the neighborhood into leather and called it The Flat Hill Collection – luggage tags to journals, made for the blocks that shop here.

First, the stoops. Every block here greets you stoop to stoop, so we drew one in strict profile – five steps up to a tall parlor door, the railing ending in its iron scroll – and set STOOP TO STOOP beneath it.

The STOOP TO STOOP stamp artwork for the Flat Hill Collection, a leather study of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

It looks genuinely beautiful on the luggage tags – chestnut brown for the sandstone, deep green for the street trees. The black tag carries the stamp in gold foil.

Black, chestnut and forest-green leather luggage tags stamped STOOP TO STOOP for the Flat Hill Collection of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

Next, the neighborhood's best secret. A railway tunnel has slept beneath Atlantic Avenue since 1844, sealed since 1861 – so ATLANTIC rides the surface of the die, and UNDER waits below in the brick arch with the locomotive.

The UNDER ATLANTIC railway-tunnel stamp artwork for the Flat Hill Collection, a leather study of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

We pressed it at generous size into the golden tan catchall tray – the place where pockets get emptied at the end of the day.

A golden tan leather catchall tray stamped UNDER ATLANTIC for the Flat Hill Collection of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

On the journals it rides in navy and pale warm greige – the avenue's water and its slate. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Blue and warm gray leather journals stamped UNDER ATLANTIC for the Flat Hill Collection of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

And finally, the namesake. The hill is flat – every local knows it, every visitor eventually asks – so we set a carpenter's level under BOERUM HILL, bubble dead center, and let the die deliver the verdict: PERFECTLY LEVEL.

The PERFECTLY LEVEL stamp artwork for the Flat Hill Collection, a leather study of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

It stamps beautifully at pocket scale – keychains in deep green and warm tan.

Forest-green and caramel leather keychains stamped PERFECTLY LEVEL for the Flat Hill Collection of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

And on the toiletry kits, honeyed russet over deep espresso, the level sits low in the corner – exactly where a level belongs.

Russet and espresso leather toiletry bags stamped PERFECTLY LEVEL for the Flat Hill Collection of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

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 in Boerum Hill and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.