T&M Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
T&M Travel has planned trips start to finish from Bend, Oregon since 1992, from cruises to long international itineraries. Marilyn started the agency that year and still runs it herself. Her homepage says it plainly: “No call centers, no being passed around. You work directly with Marilyn the whole way.” More than thirty years on, she reports hundreds of happy travelers and a perfect 5.0 review rating, and the reviews read like thank-you notes to a friend.
The mark drew us before the story did. It is a dark navy monogram, a T and an M with a small ampersand tucked between their stems and TRAVEL letter-spaced beneath. A monogram like that is halfway to a die already. Our one worry was the ampersand, which sits tight enough that a press could swallow it at luggage-tag scale; we would find out.
The mark, as found
Pressed
Navy-blue first, after the deep blue of her own identity, and then deep forest green, after the pine country around Bend. Black carries the gold foil. The ampersand held, cleanly, even at this size.
The Whole Way Line
Pressed lengthwise on the same leathers, this companion takes her best sentence and draws it. A single dashed route rises from a bold pin marked BEND and crests beneath a small plane. It settles onto a matching pin at the far end, same height and same size, which felt right for an agency that stays with you from booking to homecoming. THE WHOLE WAY runs beneath in plain capitals. We cut the dashes thick, since thin ones close up at pressing depth.
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 T&M Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.