PLEASE TOUCH – a Volume II leather stamping study of touch and wear

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of original stamping studies. Volume II.

A September study.

Nearly everything in a gallery asks for a step back. Leather asks for the hand – it is the rare material that keeps a record of every hand it meets, and it improves under the attention. We made five stamps about that permission and called the collection PLEASE TOUCH.

First, we borrowed the language of the shipping crate and turned it around. Every suitcase in the world pleads HANDLE WITH CARE; this tag answers HANDLE FREELY, with the fine print CONTENTS IMPROVE WITH USE.

Black-and-white HANDLE FREELY freight-mark artwork from the PLEASE TOUCH leather collection about handling and wear.

The black tag carries the marking in gold. Warm tan and pale sea-blue press blind.

A black leather luggage tag gold stamped HANDLE FREELY for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handling and wear.

A caramel leather luggage tag blind stamped HANDLE FREELY for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handling and wear.

A pale sea-blue leather luggage tag blind stamped HANDLE FREELY for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handling and wear.

Next, the worry stone, drawn as its own biography – the outline it arrived with closing, ring by ring, on the solid pebble a thumb is rubbing it into, over the words WORN SMOOTH. A fob rides the pocket the same way.

Black-and-white WORN SMOOTH worry-stone artwork from the PLEASE TOUCH leather collection about handling and wear.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on chestnut that shows its handling, once on pale greige, the stone's own color.

A chestnut leather keychain blind stamped WORN SMOOTH for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handling and wear.

A pale greige leather keychain blind stamped WORN SMOOTH for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handling and wear.

Then we started the count. A toiletry bag gets unzipped every morning for decades, so its corner carries the first fifteen mornings in tally marks above TEN THOUSAND MORNINGS – the bag keeps the rest of the tally itself.

Black-and-white TEN THOUSAND MORNINGS tally artwork from the PLEASE TOUCH leather collection about daily use.

Warm tan over chestnut, the two leathers that wear in best.

Caramel and chestnut leather toiletry bags blind stamped TEN THOUSAND MORNINGS for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about daily use.

Then, the instrument itself. A journal is the last everyday object still made of handwriting, so its corner carries a hand at rest, just lifted from the page, over the words BY HAND.

Black-and-white BY HAND drawing artwork from the PLEASE TOUCH leather collection about handwriting and touch.

On black the hand presses as a quiet shadow relief; on pale warm greige it sits like a study on drawing paper.

A black leather journal blind stamped BY HAND for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handwriting and touch.

A pale greige leather journal blind stamped BY HAND for the PLEASE TOUCH collection about handwriting and touch.

And finally, the piece that names the collection. We took the mark a hand leaves on everything it is welcome to hold – one whorl, ridge by ridge – and set PLEASE TOUCH beneath it, pressed generous in the center of the tray where the day's handled things land. It looks genuinely beautiful on the golden tan.

Black-and-white PLEASE TOUCH fingerprint artwork from the PLEASE TOUCH leather collection about handling and wear.

A golden tan leather catchall tray blind stamped with a fingerprint and PLEASE TOUCH for the collection about handling and wear.

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.