The Dream City Pressworks – a Boca Raton, Florida leather stamping study
From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies.
A September study.
Volume I-A.
The Dream City Pressworks is a small leather collection rooted in Boca Raton, Florida – a city that was advertised before it was built, and only partly built as advertised. We pressed four chapters of that story into leather, from luggage tags to a catchall tray.
First, we drew the Town Hall as it was finished in 1927, from the bell cupola down to the pedimented door, and set it in the lower corner of a journal, the way a builder signs a cornerstone. The architect drew it far grander; the town built what it could afford, and this smaller building is the one residents still point to. One journal wears a pale warm greige close to the building's own chalky stucco, the other a deep archive navy.
Looks great when stamped onto the leather.
Next, we borrowed the question a 1925 advertisement asked its readers – Where is Boca Raton? – and let the map keep answering it. On a luggage tag the question travels well: wherever the bag lands, the marked map answers it. Two of the tags wear the advertisement's own inks, pale sea-blue for its Atlantic and golden tan for its Florida; the third takes the deep navy of its lettering.
They turned out charming.
Then, the boulevard that exists only as a drawing. Camino Real was planned around a center canal crossed by a Venetian bridge; the road went in, while the canal stayed on paper. We stamped the drawn version into the golden tan tray – palms in strict rows, water running straight to its little bridge – so the dream city finally has somewhere to hold your keys at the end of the day.
It looks genuinely beautiful.
And finally, the mark under everything. The tiles and grilles of this city could not be ordered from a catalog, so workshops rose to make them by hand. We set a potter's amphora in a ring – BOCA RATON above, MADE BY HAND below – a maker's mark for a handmade city. One fob is a kiln-brown chestnut, the color of the pottery advertisement's ink. The black fob carries the mark in gold. The same mark sits small in the corner of the toiletry bag stack, honeyed russet over chestnut – the colors of a barrel-tile roof.
Keychains with the amphora stamp look just awesome too.
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 interested in the collection and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.