Oahe Family YMCA × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study

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

An August study.

For Oahe Family YMCA.

For the warm-up, we put the logo on the luggage tags. The warm red and the golden tan come straight from the mark; the pale greige stands in for the white field around it.

Oahe Family YMCA logo blind debossed on warm red, golden tan and pale greige leather luggage tags

Next, the mission – "healthy spirit, mind and body for all." We gave each of its words one side of the same triangle and set FOR ALL in the middle, so the figure closes the way the sentence does.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Spirit Mind Body triangular die artwork with For All at its center

Spirit Mind Body design blind debossed on warm red and warm gray leather keychains

The same triangle rides the lower corner of the dopp kits, golden tan over chestnut – fitting, for the bag that actually makes it to the gym.

Spirit Mind Body design blind debossed on golden tan and chestnut leather toiletry bags

Then the journals, in warm red and classic tan. The 2023 expansion went by "Creating A Better Us," so we pressed the phrase with the last S still mid-build – a ladder against it, one small figure finishing the stroke. A better us stays a work in progress.

Creating A Better Us die artwork with a figure finishing the final letter from a ladder

Creating A Better Us design blind debossed on warm red and classic tan leather journals

And finally, the catchall tray. A catchall accepts whatever the day hands it, so the base carries an open door with light across the threshold, under the two words the mission ends on – FOR ALL.

For All open-door die artwork with light crossing the threshold

For All open-door design blind debossed on a golden tan leather catchall tray

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 Oahe Family YMCA and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.