Four IMI Companies × Leatherius Woodman – leather stamping studies
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Most entries in this log take one mark at a time. This one takes four, because the four are family: IMI, Inc. is the parent of iSuite, icon Mechanical, iENG Design and eagle Controls, and the group describes its combined work in a single sentence, “We design it, build it, service it, control it and support it.” Each company owns part of that sentence. Pressing them onto one page seemed the only honest way to study them.
The family is 100% employee owned, and it asks people who join to bring an owner’s mindset through the door. That shows in the marks. All four are developed proprietary lockups, drawn with care and kept in consistent order, which is rarer among sibling companies than you would think.
iSuite
iSuite was formed in 2023 by leaders from icon Mechanical and iENG Design, who gathered the specialized support functions of a construction business under one roof, estimating and accounting among them. Its own phrase for the job is “Support the Build.” The company is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with branch offices reaching from Granite City, Illinois to Charlotte, North Carolina.
The mark, as found
Pressed into three leathers
The power-button ‘i’ is a die maker’s dream, a closed ring with one clean break and a square dot, and the heavy ‘Suite’ beside it presses deep without going mushy at the edges. Blueberry answers the dominant blue of the ring and the wordmark, while caramel stands in for the yellow stroke, about as close to that color as honest leather comes. Black takes the gold foil. On the two colored tags the press is blind, all shadow, and we left the small endorsement line off every die in this study; at tag scale it would close into texture.
A crane hoists the luggage
For the companion we drew a single tower crane hoisting a suitcase, with SUPPORT THE BUILD beneath. A support company lifts what the operating companies would otherwise haul up the scaffolding themselves, and a luggage tag seemed a fair place to say so. The crane stays deliberately simple. One mast, one jib. Foil rewards restraint.
icon Mechanical
Founded in 1995 with a stated goal of unmatched customer service, icon Mechanical is a full-service mechanical contractor whose work runs from design and fabrication through installation and ongoing service. The firm wears its name as an ambition, to become “an icon” of its industry, and its headline reads “ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE BY DESIGN.” Process piping and power piping sit at the center of the trade.
The lockup, as published
On the press
The outlined lowercase ‘icon’ gave us pause. In color, the yellow serifs sit on their red swoop because a black keyline holds them together; in blind deboss the keyline and the fill become a single relief, and for a while we doubted the word would survive the merge. It survives, and the outline is why, since it gives each letter enough body to cast a shadow. Poppy red follows the circular swoop and the thin rule under ‘Mechanical,’ while caramel follows the yellow lettering of ‘icon.’ Black carries the gold, as ever.
A suitcase made of pipe
Pipe elbows and flanges make up the companion suitcase, latched with a valve wheel, above ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE BY DESIGN. A mechanical contractor would recognize every joint in it. We enjoyed the thought that a firm which routes process piping through whole plants could, if it ever grew bored, plumb a carry-on.
iENG Design
iENG Design describes its work as turning complex ideas into clear engineering solutions, with creativity kept in the same room as the science and the mathematics. The firm works from Swingley Ridge Road in Chesterfield, Missouri, and its culture page states the ambition plainly, to “raise the bar” and set a new standard. The whole family points the same direction, toward what it calls “a better build.”
As it arrives
Three tags, one swoosh
Of the four marks this is the most kinetic, an italic ‘i’ leaning into heavy geometric capitals while a broad swoosh rises beneath them and tapers off the right edge. A tapering curve is handsome work for a die; the deboss narrows with it, and still leather reads as motion. Navy went to blueberry and orange went to Indian summer, which renders as a honeyed russet. The black tag holds the gold.
Above the old bar
A hook lifts an I-beam clear of a dashed line where the old level used to sit, with RAISE THE BAR beneath. The dashes matter. A raised bar means something only when you can still see where the previous one was, and an engineering firm that talks of setting a new standard deserves the comparison drawn honestly.
eagle Controls
eagle Controls is a total energy solutions provider for automation systems, working under the tagline “Integrating the Future.” The firm designs and installs user-friendly automation systems, then stays on to maintain them, bringing nearly forty years of experience in schools and universities as well as government buildings and places of worship. Its careers page ends on a line we kept returning to, “Because at eagle Controls, we deliver together.”
The eagle, as found
In leather
Long blades assemble the device, and low on the left they resolve into an eagle’s head and beak; each blade cuts a clean channel in leather. Lime, though, is the one color in this study with no leather cousin. We circled brighter greens and kept landing back on forest green, which trades the mark’s electricity for something quieter and more grounded, and we remain about half convinced, though the render argues for the trade. So the pairing stands, forest green for the lime blades and blueberry for the blue feathers and the word ‘Controls.’ Gold foil belongs to black, house rule.
Delivered by air
Here the eagle earns its keep, carrying a suitcase in its talons above WE DELIVER TOGETHER, a three-dash trail marking the flight already flown. A controls firm promises arrival, of comfort and of the right temperature at the right hour, so a courier eagle felt like the truthful emblem. It is also, we admit, the companion we would keep for ourselves.
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 one of the IMI companies and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.