Three luggage-tag studies for United teams
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world organizations.
An August study.
A basket carried, trays kept moving, and a baton handed on
United Airlines operates a global passenger network. Its public digital experience organizes a journey around origins and destinations, dates, travelers, booking, check-in, flight status, trips, and an interactive route map. For teams behind that experience, movement is also an operational sequence of handoffs, shared tools, and processes that have to stay clear.
The current icon is a white curved grid cropped into a blue square. The booking interface adds deep navy, bright royal blue, rounded origin-and-destination fields, two opposing swap arrows, and a pale-aqua map. These independent studies do not reproduce the globe, square lockup, wordmark, aircraft livery, loyalty marks, wings, map pins, or an airplane. Curved grid bands become the weave of a market basket, rounded fields become checkpoint trays on rollers, and opposing swap geometry becomes a relay-baton handoff.
As leather luggage tags, the ideas could be considered for approved transformation or industrial-engineering teams, airport launches, interns, early-career or leadership cohorts, mentors, employee groups, conferences, and project milestones. The objects reward the people and process behind travel rather than advertise to passengers, and any real program would remain subject to United’s procurement, employee-gift, partner-gift, and mark approvals.
Leather and treatment
Deep navy, clear royal blue, and natural tan make an unmistakably travel-ready leather family without copying aircraft branding. Deep tonal impressions suit daily use; restrained antique-brass on tan gives one milestone version while keeping exactly the same artwork.
The three concepts
1. Market Basket Weave
A hand-carried market basket is woven from broad crossing curved bands beneath one simple handle. The first read is a useful thing made to carry; the second turns the current icon’s latitude-and-longitude rhythm into physical basketwork without forming a globe.
2. Three Trays Rolling
Three open checkpoint trays travel in an even row over five rollers. Their familiar operational rhythm comes first, while each shallow rounded container restates the shape and spacing of the booking interface’s origin-and-destination fields.
3. Passing the Baton
Two hands meet around the ends of one relay baton. It is a direct picture of a clean team handoff, and the two opposed reaches quietly follow the paired swap-arrow geometry between the booking screen’s endpoints.
These are independent design studies for appropriate team, partner, collaborator, adviser, vendor, volunteer, or client occasions. No affiliation, approval, or endorsement is implied. Every image is a render used to test the object before cutting a physical die.
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.
If you’re United Airlines and you’d like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.