Lost on Purpose – a leather collection for Fayetteville, Arkansas

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

An August study.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, a street climbs from the old railroad flats toward the university, and somewhere along it a hundred thousand used books wait in a labyrinth of shelves. We spent August pressing that street into leather. The collection is called Lost on Purpose.

First, the labyrinth. We drew a maze whose walls are shelved books seen from above, with one gap to get in and a single open book waiting at the center. LOST ON PURPOSE, says the die – because a hundred-foot corridor of fiction is a place you enter meaning to lose the afternoon.

The Lost on Purpose black-and-white leather stamp design turns bookshelves into a labyrinth for Fayetteville, Arkansas.

We pressed it on a trio of luggage tags in deep book-cloth green and honeyed russet. The black tag carries the maze in gold, tooled the way a binder gilds a spine.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Three leather luggage tags carry the Lost on Purpose bookshelf labyrinth from Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The same maze travels on the toiletry bags, honeyed russet over dark espresso – for the reader who came a long way to get lost properly.

Two leather toiletry bags carry the bookshelf maze from the Lost on Purpose collection of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Next, the hill. Dickson Street climbs, and the shelves everyone remembers sit about halfway up – so the fob carries a stepped slope with small storefronts on the risers and one open book standing at the middle step, HALFWAY UP THE HILL arched overhead.

The Halfway Up the Hill black-and-white leather stamp design climbs Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

One fob in forest green, one in warm caramel. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Forest green and caramel leather keychains carry the Halfway Up the Hill design from Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Then, the bookmark. Used books arrive with previous lives folded inside – a ticket stub here, a note in a stranger's hand there. We drew ours as an old railway ticket, punched once by the conductor, since trains are what first carried readers up this street in 1881. It makes the one promise a bookmark can keep: SOMEONE WILL FIND THIS.

The Someone Will Find This black-and-white leather stamp design turns a found railway ticket into a bookmark for Fayetteville, Arkansas.

On the journals it sits in the lower corner, one cover in deep wine and one in pale paper greige – a blank book waiting to become somebody's found thing. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Two leather journals carry the Someone Will Find This bookmark from the Lost on Purpose collection of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

And finally, the catchall tray in golden tan, where the day's pockets empty out. Keys and ticket stubs land right on the promise at its center – a household's own small archive of found things.

An Arizona leather catchall tray carries the Someone Will Find This bookmark from the Lost on Purpose collection of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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 Lost on Purpose belongs on your shelf, or you'd like anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.