Three leather luggage-tag studies for Macquarie
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world organizations.
A July study.
Value found in an opening
Macquarie Group is a global financial-services organization whose work spans asset management, banking, wealth management, and advisory activity. Its purpose is empowering people to innovate and invest for a better future, guided by opportunity, accountability, and integrity. The brand language adds Expert Advantage, Unseen Opportunity, Enriching Lives, and Real World Impact.
The logo comes from a wonderfully physical piece of financial history. Faced with a currency shortage in 1813, Governor Lachlan Macquarie imported Spanish silver dollars and punched out their centers. One coin became two usable pieces whose combined value rose by 25 percent. Macquarie’s current mark turns that holey dollar into nested uneven rings around a clean circular opening.
A client-onboarding gift should remain restrained, useful, and easy to clear through the realities of financial-industry compliance. Luggage tags can mark team recognition, conferences, or a relationship milestone where policy allows. These studies focus on access and useful transformation, avoiding claims about products, returns, or advice.
Leather and treatment
Poppy Red and Country Gray carry a blind deboss. Black receives the same die in cool silver, close to the masterbrand’s black-and-white discipline. Every concept uses a familiar object so the historical idea arrives through use rather than a finance emblem.
The three concepts
1. Key to the Round Door
A key approaches a round keyhole set into a simple door plate. The single circular opening comes from the holey-dollar symbol, stripped of its nested contours and given an everyday purpose. The first read is access. A Macquarie reader may then notice that the opening created by removal is the part that makes entry possible.
The design suits onboarding because the action is poised, not completed. A new relationship begins with permissions, documents, introductions, and coordinated work. The key is ready, and the door remains visible. It offers a warmer picture of access than a checklist while staying grounded enough for an operations or client-service team.
2. Ripples at the Dock
Three open ripples reach a small dock. Their uneven concentric spacing comes directly from the symbol’s nested ring rhythm, opened on one side so the circles become moving water. The dock gives those expanding lines a real destination, turning abstract impact into arrival at a place someone can stand.
Macquarie’s brand speaks about unseen opportunity and real-world impact. Ripples can easily become vague symbolism, so the dock matters. It introduces friction and scale: the movement reaches infrastructure, an edge, and a human point of use. The image stays quiet enough for a financial-services gift and carries a second reading for anyone familiar with the mark.
3. The Punched Ticket
A ticket has just been punched, and the small circular piece falls below it. The action comes from the holey-dollar history while every trace of currency has been removed. Most viewers will see validation and readiness: the ticket can now be used.
The punched disc remains visible because both pieces matter in the original story. One precise intervention creates a second useful object and increases total value. A ticket also belongs naturally to travel, events, and access, making the idea especially comfortable on a luggage tag. Of the three, this is the most direct expression of Macquarie’s heritage and perhaps the easiest gift for an ordinary recipient to understand immediately.
These are independent design studies for appropriate employee, partner, or client occasions where policy permits. They make no statement about financial services or outcomes. Every image is a render used to test the object before cutting a physical die.
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 Macquarie Group and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.