STERIS × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
An August study.
STERIS looks after the part of a hospital nobody photographs. Long before a patient meets a surgeon, someone has made the room ready: instruments cleaned and sterilized, equipment checked and standing by. STERIS builds and services much of what that someone uses; the company's own description is "a leading global provider of products and services that support patient care with an emphasis on infection prevention."
Their mission is set in capital letters: "WE HELP OUR CUSTOMERS CREATE A HEALTHIER AND SAFER WORLD." We liked that a company whose machines live in basement processing departments talks, without blinking, about the whole world. It began in Ohio in 1985 and still calls Mentor home. The world part came true anyway.
The mark, as found
Six blue wave strokes stacked into a tidy square, then STERIS in widely tracked serif capitals. All six waves keep the same discipline, and the square they make sits beside the wordmark like a seal of its own. It is a calm, exact piece of drawing.
Pressed
The full mark runs along lengthwise luggage tags in blueberry and gray sand, a deep navy and a pale warm greige that sit close to the blue of the waves and the clean white field they float on. A black tag joins the pair and carries the mark in gold foil, the one leather in our line that takes it.
Still water
For the companion mark we let the six waves settle. The top stroke moves like open water. Each line beneath it grows calmer, and the sixth runs perfectly straight. Under the stack, in the same engraver's capitals, a line of our own: READY FOR WHAT MATTERS. We wrote it for the people who would carry these pieces, the ones whose job is to have everything calm and correct before anyone else walks in. Their work is the settling.
On the keychains it sits on the fob face in the same blueberry and gray sand as the tags, pressed blind so the design reads as pure relief.
The toiletry bags take it as a small maker's mark in the lower corner of each front face, a blueberry bag riding over dark espresso. Every bag in our line is pressed blind; the leather does the talking.
The wrap journals give the design more room, a generous corner pressing on pale sea-blue and gray sand. Pale sea-blue is the closest our leather comes to the bright blue of the wave symbol.
A world made of waves
The mission line asked for a seal. Around the ring, in their own words, A HEALTHIER AND SAFER WORLD, with SINCE 1985 answering below. In the center the six waves return, trimmed by the circle so the stack reads as a globe made of water.
We drew it for the catchall tray, the small dish where keys and coins land at the end of the day. The tray is golden tan arizona, the seal pressed blind and generous across the base. A small daily landing place carrying a large claim, which felt right for this company.
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 STERIS and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.