Walking Distance – a Bed-Stuy leather collection

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies drawn from real-world places.

A August study.

Walking Distance is a small leather collection rooted in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Four stamps drawn from the blocks around Tompkins Avenue, pressed into everyday leather – luggage tags and journals among them.

First, we set two stoops facing each other and hung HELLO between them on an arc, a small bridge of type over the gap – for the oldest custom on the block, the one the elders still keep.

The HELLO stoop-bridge stamp design from the Walking Distance leather collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

On the luggage tags it rides honeyed russet and pale greige. The black tag carries it in gold.

Honeyed russet, pale greige and black leather luggage tags stamped with HELLO, from the Walking Distance collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Next, stoop season. One stoop in profile, scrolled rail and all, with the words stacked underneath – for the months when the whole block lives outdoors. Keychains in golden tan and deep green, one for each side of a tree-lined street. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

The Stoop Season stamp design from the Walking Distance leather collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Golden tan and forest green leather keychains stamped with Stoop Season, from the Walking Distance collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Then we drew the fanlight, the half-round window over a brownstone door, and let it be what it already is: a sunrise. WALKING DISTANCE runs beneath it, after the old neighborhood ideal that everything good should be reachable on foot.

The Walking Distance fanlight-sunrise stamp design from the leather collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

We pressed it small into the corner of a travel kit stack, warm amber over deep espresso – brownstone over iron.

Warm amber and deep espresso leather toiletry bags stamped with a fanlight sunrise, from the Walking Distance collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

On the golden tan catchall tray it sits at full size – the dish by the door where the keys land, under a sunrise of its own. It looks genuinely beautiful.

An Arizona leather catchall tray stamped with the Walking Distance fanlight sunrise of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

And finally, the one we liked the most. A rowhouse block reads like a measure of music, so we set four windows on a staff as notes, gave it a railing scroll for a clef, and closed the measure with a double barline. ON THE BLOCK, in common time. On journals in deep wine and pale greige – old brick and limestone.

The On the Block musical-window stamp design from the Walking Distance leather collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

Deep wine and pale greige leather journals stamped with On the Block, from the Walking Distance collection of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

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 from the block and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.