The Harrisonburg Plan – a leather collection for the Friendly City

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

An August study.

This month, a leather collection for Harrisonburg. Five stamps for the Friendly City and the Valley around it, pressed onto luggage tags, journals and more. We call the set The Harrisonburg Plan.

First, the design that named the collection. Old maps know Harrisonburg's downtown by the Harrisonburg Plan, the 1779 street pattern in which every street either meets Court Square head on or runs tangent along its edge. We drew the plat as a stamp and pressed it into the base of a catchall tray, so that at the end of the day everything finds the square.

The Court Square plan stamp design from The Harrisonburg Plan leather collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

An Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with the Court Square design from The Harrisonburg Plan collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Next, the long view. Locals call the whole stretch simply the Valley. We layered the Alleghenies on one side and the Blue Ridge on the other, then left one small star on the valley floor where Harrisonburg sits between them. The design runs lengthwise along three luggage tags. Deep forest green and pale warm greige carry the fields and the limestone under them; the navy tag is the ridgeline after sundown.

The layered ridge stamp design from The Harrisonburg Plan leather collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Three leather luggage tags stamped with THE VALLEY from The Harrisonburg Plan collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Then the older nickname. Before anyone called it the Friendly City, the town was Rocktown, after the limestone it stands on. We set the word in slab capitals on a course of drystone and stamped it in the corner of a two-bag toiletry stack, warm stone gray over chestnut.

The ROCKTOWN limestone-wall stamp design from The Harrisonburg Plan leather collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Two leather toiletry bags stamped with ROCKTOWN from The Harrisonburg Plan collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

After that, a phrase with a wink. Every May the students clear out and Townie Summer begins, the season when downtown belongs to the people who stay. Under a full sun, one empty bench – take any seat you like. It rides on a pair of keychains, golden tan and pale sea-blue.

The TOWNIE SUMMER sun-and-bench stamp design from The Harrisonburg Plan leather collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Keychains with the empty bench look just awesome.

Two leather keychains stamped with TOWNIE SUMMER from The Harrisonburg Plan collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

And finally, the oldest sentence in town. In 1779 Thomas Harrison gave the land for the courthouse for the public good, and Harrisonburg grew up around the gift. We set the phrase under an open, offering hand and pressed it into the corner of two journals, deep wine and pale warm greige. A journal is where that kind of intention gets written down first.

The FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD deed stamp design from The Harrisonburg Plan leather collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Two leather journals stamped with FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD from The Harrisonburg Plan collection of Harrisonburg, Virginia.

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'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.