TransAtlas Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A September study.
TransAtlas Travel plans bespoke international journeys from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and hosts small tours abroad for adults, never more than ten travelers at a time. Their line is “Follow us. We’ll lead.” Paris and Bordeaux are the signature pairing, grand hotels and private tastings in the Bordeaux vineyards, and the site is frank about how the founders themselves go: “We at TransAtlas Travel personally never check a bag.”
The mark asked for the study before we had read a word. A wireframe globe in gold, an aircraft climbing across it. Two orbits swung around the whole, and an Art Deco wordmark underneath. We pressed it once, elsewhere in the log, and left it alone here. This page is for the designs a tag could carry beside it, each one on its own leather.
The mark, as found
Atlas, relieved
The name holds a titan, and the titan holds the heavens. We gave him the afternoon off. He stands braced in the old pose, knees bent, arms straight up, and what he lifts is one small suitcase he could carry with a finger, over the words TRAVEL LIGHT. Gold on black, because a statue wants bronze.
Carry on
Their own rule, drawn as the bag itself. A strapped case with a latch and corner protectors under the arched words CARRY ON, which read as the instruction and as the object at once. Pressed into caramel, the classic luggage leather.
Slow travel
They use the phrase on their site, so we took it literally. A snail carries a small vintage suitcase where its shell should be, eye stalks forward, going exactly as fast as it means to. On pale gray-sand, the quietest leather in the drawer.
Follow us
The tagline, staged. One umbrella held high, the universal signal of a hosted tour, and ten small rolling suitcases in single file behind it. FOLLOW US above, WE WILL LEAD below. The umbrella wanted a red tag, so it has one.
Party of ten
Never more than ten travelers, the site says, and we kept thinking about what ten looks like. It looks like a table. A round one, seen from above, ten chairs around it, PARTY OF TEN beneath. Deep forest green, the color of a long dinner.
Pick a page
An atlas is also a book. We opened it, and a dotted route lifts out of the gutter into a small climbing aircraft, over the words PICK A PAGE. Bespoke planning in one gesture: you choose, they take it from there. Dark espresso, a library leather.
Paris to Bordeaux
The signature journey. We set the Eiffel Tower at one end of the tag and the old stone gate of Bordeaux at the other, and swung a dashed route between them. This one runs the length of the tag, in a wine-dark sangria.
Departures
Their own photographs gave us the four rows: PARIS, BORDEAUX, EDINBURGH, SYDNEY, on an old split-flap board under the word DEPARTURES. We are fond of that small shiver the board gives before it settles. Warm country gray, close to the gray of a terminal at six in the morning.
The world next door
Their site calls international travel a doorway to intercultural understanding and friendship, so we built the doorway. A door stands open in its arch onto the meridians of a globe, over THE WORLD NEXT DOOR. Navy, the color half the world’s passports come in.
Six down, one to go
The site counts six continents so far. We drew the seventh’s welcoming committee: a penguin, one flipper on a small suitcase, over the words SIX DOWN and ONE TO GO. Whether the last one ever gets ticked is their business; the tag will wait. Pressed into turquoise, which comes out of the press a pale sea-blue.
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 TransAtlas Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.