PLAY IN NORTHPORT, Volume II – a leather stamping collection for Northport, New York
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world logos.
An August study.
Main Street in Northport runs downhill until it turns into a dock. We spent the month pressing that village into leather – five new designs under one old promise. This is PLAY IN NORTHPORT, Volume II.
First, the design the collection is named for. A Depression-era poster once sold this village to tired commuters with the line "Work in the City, Play in Northport," and we set it the way a poster artist would have – the city held small at the top, with a catboat under full sail in the middle and PLAY IN NORTHPORT taking the whole bottom line.
On the luggage tags it runs in navy and poppy red, with pale greige standing in for the poster stock. It looks genuinely beautiful.
Next, the keychains. Main Street ends at the village dock, so the fob got a horn cleat with its line made fast and END OF MAIN STREET set underneath – a cleat holds a line the way a fob holds keys.
One fob went to pale sea-blue, the harbor's own color. The black fob carries the cleat in gold – the way good dock hardware shines.
Then the toiletry bags. Rails from the 1902 trolley still show in the pavement of Main Street, and they only ever pointed one way. We drew the two rails running to their vanishing point, with a sail waiting where they meet the water and DOWN TO THE WATER arched over the horizon.
On the two-bag stack it goes down blind, country gray over dark espresso – steel over creosote.
Then the catchall tray, which is where pockets go to empty at the end of a day. We ringed WHAT THE TIDE BROUGHT IN with the harbor's own pocket inventory – shells and sea glass, a house key and one small toy jack.
Pressed at full size on the golden tan tray.
And finally, the one we liked the most. A famous novelist lived up the hill here for six years, and long after he left, a manuscript was found behind a radiator in one of his old houses. So the journal cover gives the advice this village earned the hard way – CHECK BEHIND THE RADIATOR.
Deep wine and warm tan – the bindings that manuscript deserved. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.
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 in Northport and you'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.
P.S. Here are the individual color studies used to build the grouped views.
