Tropical Tours & Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Tropical Tours & Travel is a full-service, Christian-owned-and-operated agency in Waldorf, Maryland, open since November 1996 and a CLIA member, planning travel worldwide with specialties that run from group trips to destination weddings. The agency began as a long-held dream. Its owner moved from Europe, trained at what the site calls simply the Academy and worked in the airline industry, then spent six years at another agency before the Waldorf doors opened. Nearly thirty years later the headline still reads “Planning Happy Travels.” The mission still invites clients to “imagine, discover, and experience your dreams.”
What asked for the study is the sunrise perched above the name. A yellow half-sun sits behind six sharp diagonal bands, orange ones falling to the left and magenta ones rising to the right, and where the two sets would meet the design leaves an open V of sky. Most travel marks would have filled that gap with an airplane. This one trusts the horizon, and under a die that open V earns its keep as a clean wedge of unpressed leather at the crown of the sun.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
Two of the leathers come straight out of the logo, a vivid fuchsia after the magenta wordmark and an indian summer whose honeyed russet answers the orange-and-yellow half of the sunrise. Black carries the gold foil, as it always does. The serif wordmark made us a little nervous; thin strokes tend to close up at luggage-tag scale, and in the fuchsia render the finest of them sit right at the edge of what a die will hold.
Suitcase Sunrise
For the companion we packed the sunrise into luggage. A suitcase sits centered in bold outline, two strap lines across its face and a small arched handle up top between the latches. From behind that top edge a half-sun rises, clearing the handle by a visible gap, and its six rays fan upward, three leaning left and three leaning right, so the crown stays open – the same V of sky the logo keeps. One line runs beneath, PLANNING HAPPY TRAVELS. We kept the field clear of palms and planes; a sun coming up over a packed bag says plenty on its own.
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 Tropical Tours & Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.