The Reading Hours – a leather stamping collection for the reading life

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

A September study.

Volume I-B.

Readers keep their own hours. The four designs below follow one reader's day in leather – from the thought caught before it slips to the moment the glasses finally come off.

First, the journal's whole job in three words. We set BEFORE I FORGET over an underline that starts out certain and dissolves into dots – the thought already fading while the hand writes it down.

Black-and-white BEFORE I FORGET die artwork with a dissolving underline for The Reading Hours leather collection.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather – once on navy, once on pale warm greige.

A navy leather journal blind-stamped with BEFORE I FORGET from The Reading Hours.

A pale warm greige leather journal blind-stamped with BEFORE I FORGET from The Reading Hours.

Next, the packing arithmetic. We stacked three hardcovers over the plain confession THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS – anyone who has packed for a weekend knows the math never runs the other way.

Black-and-white die artwork of three books above THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS for The Reading Hours leather collection.

The black tag carries the design in gold.

A black leather luggage tag gold-stamped with THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS from The Reading Hours.

A deep wine leather luggage tag blind-stamped with THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS from The Reading Hours.

A deep green leather luggage tag blind-stamped with THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS from The Reading Hours.

The same stamp sits in the corner of the toiletry kit, warm tan stacked on deep brown – the bag that actually makes the trip.

Warm tan and deep brown leather toiletry bags blind-stamped with THREE BOOKS FOR TWO NIGHTS from The Reading Hours.

Then, the sentence every reader has said to an empty room. A small lamp throws its rays over an open book, and ONE MORE CHAPTER arches overhead.

Black-and-white die artwork of a reading lamp and open book beneath ONE MORE CHAPTER for The Reading Hours leather collection.

It looks genuinely beautiful – golden tan for the lamplight, navy for the hour.

A golden tan leather keychain blind-stamped with ONE MORE CHAPTER from The Reading Hours.

A navy leather keychain blind-stamped with ONE MORE CHAPTER from The Reading Hours.

And finally, where the day sets everything down. We put UNTIL TOMORROW in the middle of the tray; around the words, the folded glasses and the pencil. A ribbon bookmark keeps the place till morning.

Black-and-white die artwork of reading glasses, a pencil and ribbon around UNTIL TOMORROW for The Reading Hours leather collection.

A golden tan leather catchall tray blind-stamped with UNTIL TOMORROW from The Reading Hours.

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.