Safe Harbor × Leatherius Woodman – an Alexandria leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of leather stamping studies. Volume I-D.
A September study.
This is the Safe Harbor collection – five stamps for Old Town Alexandria, drawn from the crescent bay where cargo once landed every morning, and pressed into leather.
First, we set a topsail schooner making for the wharf above the words JUST IN – the oldest promise a shop shelf knows, said the way this town first heard it. The tags come in navy and honeyed russet under a blind press.
The black tag carries the design in gold foil.
Next, the anchor. Sailors had HOLD FAST lettered across their knuckles so the grip would never fail; we gave the same order to the thing that keeps the keys.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather – gold on the black fob, a blind press on the pale sea-blue one.
Then FAIR WINDS under a compass rose – the old send-off for a safe passage, pressed into the corner of the toiletry bag that actually goes along. Navy over chestnut, like the river over the wharf timbers.
Then the journals, in warm caramel tan and deep pine green. A port asked one question every morning for two centuries, so we pressed WHAT CAME IN TODAY under a small rising sun, in the corner where a diary keeps its answers.
And finally, the one we liked the most. A 1748 survey drew this bay as a shallow crescent between two points; we charted it again with one anchor riding inside, and wrote SAFE HARBOR beneath – a golden tan tray where rings and cufflinks come to rest at day's end.
It 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'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.
P.S.
