Kindred Souls – a leather collection for Sarasota's readers, writers, and poets

Volume I-A – an original leather collection.

A September study.

We designed Kindred Souls for downtown Sarasota's readers and writers – and for its poets, who by every account outnumber everyone else. Four stamps, each one a habit of the reading life.

First, the sign every reader already knows how to make – a book laid face-down, still open, holding its place while its owner steps away. Above it we set GONE READING.

Black-and-white GONE READING stamp design with an upright face-down open book

It looks genuinely beautiful. The black tag carries the design in gold.

GONE READING design pressed in gold on a black leather luggage tag

GONE READING design blind-debossed on a blush leather luggage tag

GONE READING design blind-debossed on a blueberry leather luggage tag

Next, for the microphone in the loft – an open book whose lines rise off the page as sound, with READ IT ALOUD arched over the top. A poem is only half finished until somebody hears it.

Black-and-white READ IT ALOUD stamp design with an open book and sound arcs

Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on gray sand, once on forest green.

READ IT ALOUD design blind-debossed on a gray-sand leather keychain

READ IT ALOUD design blind-debossed on a forest-green leather keychain

Then, the design the collection is named for. Starting in 1952, Sarasota's writers met over Friday lunches for some thirty years – a “loose assemblage of kindred souls,” as the county's historians put it, more than two hundred authors over the run. We drew that table from above, every chair a little different from its neighbor, and set KINDRED SOULS around the ring.

Black-and-white KINDRED SOULS stamp design with ten chairs around a round table

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather – in the corner of the caramel and dark espresso toiletry bags, and at full size across the arizona catchall tray.

KINDRED SOULS round-table design blind-debossed on caramel and dark-espresso leather dopp kits

KINDRED SOULS round-table design blind-debossed on an Arizona leather catchall tray

And finally, the journals. In the lower corner sits FIRST DRAFT, with a proofreader's caret slipping GOOD in between – every writer's second thought, built into the cover. One journal in sangria wine, one in blueberry navy.

Black-and-white FIRST GOOD DRAFT stamp design using a proofreader's insertion mark

FIRST GOOD DRAFT design blind-debossed on a sangria leather journal

FIRST GOOD DRAFT design blind-debossed on a blueberry leather journal

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 anything here made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.