Wandering Wise Travel × Leatherius Woodman – a leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world marks.
A July study.
Wandering Wise Travel is a one-advisor travel practice; the public trail names Angela as its founder, and our master record sets her in Mandeville, Louisiana, up on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain – a pin we keep for our own bookkeeping, since her pages let the work speak and keep the geography quiet. The name earns its keep. Wandering and wisdom have pulled against each other at least since Homer sent Odysseus the long way home, and the travel advisor is the trade built on reconciling the two: someone has already gone down the road and can tell you which fork wastes an afternoon. Whether Angela would put it that grandly we cannot say; her name puts it in two words.
The mark asked for this study on proportion alone. The wordmark runs long and low, all-caps serif in a deep teal, close to six times wider than it is tall, with a small gold sunburst and airplane tucked between the words like a breath. A luggage tag is the same shape. Plenty of marks fight that window; this one was practically drawn inside it.
The mark, as found
Pressed lengthwise
Two leathers follow the identity, turquoise after the open-water teal of the letters and indian-summer after the warm gold of that little sunburst. Black is automatic and carries the gold foil.
The Wise Wanderer
Hegel says the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk, wisdom arriving after the day is done. Ours refuses the schedule. THE WISE WANDERER perches a round, straight-faced owl on the arched handle of a vintage suitcase, wings folded and ear tufts up, waiting at the gate before the journey has begun; WANDER WISE runs on a single baseline beneath. We tried versions with the airplane and the sunburst worked in, and cut both. The owl and the suitcase carry the joke alone, and the drawing is better for admitting it.
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 Wandering Wise Travel and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.