Provenance – a leather stamping collection about the stories things keep

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

A September study.

Volume I-B · Commercial-Fit Independent Study

Provenance is the museum word for the story that stays attached to a thing. We designed five stamps around that idea and pressed them into leather – from luggage tags to a journal that files itself under FUTURE ARTIFACT.

First, we put a covered wagon on the luggage tags, rolling on beneath the words STILL TRAVELING. The road line runs out from under the wheels and carries the letters with it.

Black-and-white STILL TRAVELING covered-wagon stamp artwork from the Provenance leather collection.

Caramel and deep forest green take the design as a blind deboss. The black tag carries the wagon in gold.

A caramel leather luggage tag stamped with the STILL TRAVELING covered-wagon design from the Provenance collection.

A forest green leather luggage tag stamped with the STILL TRAVELING covered-wagon design from the Provenance collection.

A black leather luggage tag gold-stamped with the STILL TRAVELING covered-wagon design from the Provenance collection.

Next, we struck a new trade token for the keychains. Tokens once promised a nickel's worth of goods at the counter; ours reads GOOD FOR ONE MORE STORY, and it hangs on the keys, where it gets redeemed daily.

Black-and-white GOOD FOR ONE MORE STORY trade-token stamp artwork from the Provenance leather collection.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

A country gray leather keychain stamped with the GOOD FOR ONE MORE STORY token design from the Provenance collection.

A Sicilian brown leather keychain stamped with the GOOD FOR ONE MORE STORY token design from the Provenance collection.

Then, the journals. Every letter kept behind glass began as plain paper somebody wrote on, so the cover corner takes a small accession label – FUTURE ARTIFACT, with the number line left blank, to be earned. It comes on pale gray sand, close to archive paper, and on dark espresso, close to an old ledger.

Black-and-white FUTURE ARTIFACT accession-label stamp artwork from the Provenance leather collection.

A gray sand leather journal stamped with the FUTURE ARTIFACT accession-label design from the Provenance collection.

A dark espresso leather journal stamped with the FUTURE ARTIFACT accession-label design from the Provenance collection.

After that, a case label for the lower corner of the toiletry bag: TRAVELING EXHIBIT. Which is, after all, what it is.

Black-and-white TRAVELING EXHIBIT museum-label stamp artwork from the Provenance leather collection.

Caramel and dark espresso leather toiletry bags stamped with the TRAVELING EXHIBIT design from the Provenance collection.

And finally, the one we liked the most. The tray where pockets empty out each evening became an exhibit case of its own – PERMANENT COLLECTION across the base, and under the rule, in small capitals, ON LOAN FROM YOUR POCKETS.

Black-and-white PERMANENT COLLECTION pocket-loan stamp artwork from the Provenance leather collection.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

An arizona leather catchall tray stamped with the PERMANENT COLLECTION pocket-loan design from the Provenance collection.

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.