Terrapin Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Terrapin Travel is a luxury travel agency in Maryland, built to take the chaos out of a vacation. They do the research and the booking, and they stay on the line from the first itinerary to the flight home. Their range runs, in their own phrase, “From Safaris to Spas”. Wholesale rates and preferred amenities ride along quietly; the real service is that the endless tabs and the second-guessing disappear from your evenings.
The mark is what asked for this study. Maryland's terrapin is a born traveler, a creature whose luggage grows on its back, and theirs curls inside a broken turquoise globe while an orbit line sweeps around the shell and lands on a tiny airplane at the far left. Little map fragments drift near the animal like torn ticket stubs. A line like that is most of the way to a stamp before we lift a tool.
The mark, as found
Pressed
Pale sea-blue answers the orbit's turquoise almost exactly, and country gray sits close to the dark of the terrapin's body. Black carries the whole mark in gold. The airplane gave us pause; at tag scale it shrinks to a suggestion, and we considered growing it before deciding the original art had the proportion right. If a die ever gets cut, we may look at that again.
The packed shell
A terrapin has carried its own luggage since long before suitcases; the companion design adds the hardware. The shell becomes a hard-sided case, latched and cornered, and the animal walks on under the words FROM SAFARIS TO SPAS. Their phrase, finally given legs.
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 Terrapin Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.