The Gate Left Open – a leather collection for Pacific Grove, California

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

An August study.

This one is for Pacific Grove, California. Five original stamps, drawn from the town's own stories and pressed into leather – luggage tags and journals, keychains and a catchall tray.

First, the gate. An old local joke said that whenever fog reached Monterey, Pacific Grove had left her gate open. We drew the gate ajar with the fog streaming through the gap, and pressed it upright on a trio of luggage tags – one navy, one honeyed russet. The black tag carries the stamp in gold, the way a good binding carries its gilt edge.

The open gate stamp artwork from The Gate Left Open leather collection of Pacific Grove, California.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with the open gate design from The Gate Left Open collection of Pacific Grove, California.

Next, the toiletry bags – a stack of warm latte tan over deep espresso brown, the two colors a morning in this town is made of. In the corner sits a small round seal, a wind-bent cypress over the water, ringed by the phrase the town still uses for itself – SANCTUARY BY THE SEA.

Two leather toiletry bags stamped with a wind-bent cypress from The Gate Left Open collection of Pacific Grove, California.

Then the keychains, because house keys should live somewhere that means it. Under THE LAST HOME TOWN – the slogan coined in 1978 to defend the town's scale – stands a board-and-batten cottage with the dashed ghost of a tent still raised above its roof, the way the first cottages here really were built straight over their tent frames. One fob in deep espresso, one in navy.

Two leather keychains stamped with the tent-frame cottage from The Gate Left Open collection of Pacific Grove, California.

Then the catchall tray in golden tan. A tray keeps what pockets carry the way a tidepool keeps what the sea forgets – so the base takes a ring like a coffee stain widening into tide lines, with a sea star and a turban shell resting inside. WHAT THE TIDE LEFT.

An Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with tidepool findings from The Gate Left Open collection of Pacific Grove, California.

And finally, the one we like the most. A monarch flies two thousand miles to winter in this town's grove; a reader covers about as much ground before resting too. So the journal cover carries a monarch with folded wings, clinging to a ribbon bookmark – STAY FOR THE WINTER. One journal in honeyed russet for the wing, one in deep pine green for the grove.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

The wintering monarch stamp artwork from The Gate Left Open leather collection of Pacific Grove, California.

Two leather journals stamped with a wintering monarch from The Gate Left Open collection of Pacific Grove, California.

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'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.