Head of the Tide – an Anchorage leather collection

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world logos.

An August study.

Anchorage holds a surveyed grid at the head of Cook Inlet, against one of the greatest tides in North America. This August we pressed that meeting into leather – a small collection called Head of the Tide, from luggage tags to a catchall tray.

First, we drew the downtown grid and let the tide take it. The left half of the die is the surveyors' town, block by block; rightward the blocks loosen and dissolve into the braided channels of the mudflats, under the words WHERE THE GRID MEETS THE TIDE. It looks genuinely beautiful. The black tag carries the design in gold.

The black and white Grid and Tide stamp artwork from the Head of the Tide leather collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

Black, forest green, and pale gray leather luggage tags stamped with the Grid and Tide design from the Head of the Tide collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

Next, the number that runs the harbor. The water here climbs and falls 38.9 feet, so we drew a harbormaster's tide staff with the waterline caught mid-climb – 38.9 FEET OF TIDE. Keychains in pale sea-blue and dark espresso carry it.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Pale sea-blue and dark brown leather keychains stamped with the tide staff design from the Head of the Tide collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

Then, the founding drawing. In 1915 the townsite went to auction as six hundred surveyed lots, and the city followed the plat. A journal felt right for a city that began on paper – the cover carries the small plat, a few lots already sold, over 600 LOTS 1915.

Caramel and forest green leather journals stamped with the 1915 townsite plat from the Head of the Tide collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

After that, the view down any east-west street. We set a street in one-point perspective and ended it the way downtown streets end here – in the Chugach wall. EVERY STREET ENDS IN MOUNTAINS sits small in the corner of the toiletry bags, in country gray over dark espresso.

Gray and dark brown leather toiletry bags stamped with a downtown mountain view from the Head of the Tide collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

And finally, the one we liked the most. Cook Inlet forks at the city into its two arms, and Anchorage keeps the point between them – KNIK up one channel, TURNAGAIN up the other. A catchall tray is a resting place at the meeting of the waters, so the fork runs across the whole base.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

An amber leather catchall tray stamped with Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm from the Head of the Tide collection of Anchorage, Alaska.

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'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.