Lauren Grubbs Travel Co. × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Lauren Grubbs Travel Co. plans bespoke travel out of Newport Beach, and the founder came to the work by an unhurried road. Lauren studied World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and spent study-abroad chapters in Rio de Janeiro and Florence; her first career was in a kindergarten classroom. The classroom shows in the mission, a personalized vacation made effortless and stress-free so that clients carry home stories and memories to savor. Her phrase for it is “Elevated travel, curated for you.”
The wordmark is what pulled us in. LAUREN GRUBBS runs very wide in a thin, high-contrast serif, with TRAVEL CO. set small beneath, its period intact. The mark lives in white on a dark ground on her own site, so that is how we kept it for study. A lockup this long has already chosen its format; it belongs lengthwise, laid along the tag the way a title runs down the spine of a book.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
Forest green and gray-sand are the site’s own weather, the muted green-gray of its editorial field and the pale neutral that lets a white mark rest. Black carries the gold. We will admit one hesitation: a serif this thin asks a lot of a brass die, and we watched the renders half expecting the hairlines to close. They hold, largely because the width gives every stroke its own air, though we would still cut a test plate before committing the gold.
Stories to savor
The companion design opens a storybook that doubles as a suitcase, with STORIES TO SAVOR lettered around it. It felt right for a kindergarten teacher turned travel planner; she has spent both careers sending people home with something to retell. The drawing keeps the line weight of the wordmark, so the two stamps read as one family.
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 Lauren Grubbs Travel Co. and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.