Laser Engraving
Custom designed personalisation of your Sparrowhawk Leather piece is available using Laser Engraving. Laser Engraving allows for a wide variety of images, logos and fonts to be applied to your Sparrowhawk Leather piece during the making process prior to stitched assembly.
Sparrowhawk only laser engraves the leather pieces it makes* (see below).
- Can be engraved on Sparrowhawk's hand finished (dyed) leather and tannery finished leather
- Laser engraving is completed prior to assembly and stitching
- "Black" areas must not be too large
- Lines must not be too fine (list of appropriate laser engraving fonts available)
- Sourcing images, fonts and copyright are your responsibility (at least 300 dpi)
Above: Custom Laser Engraving on a whisky aniline journal cover to fit a Moleskine Large (A5) Notebook. Order your whisky aniline bookcover with custom laser engraving
The leather is "burned" by the laser, and the image is engraved in a dark brown / black colour. Therefore can only be successful on is successful on light coloured leathers (e.g. laser engraving is NOT suitable for Black, Navy, Medium Brown etc.). Laser engraving is also not suitable for "high touch" leather pieces, like wallets, as repeated use will "fade" the image.
Sparrowhawk's Hand Finished leather colours suitable for laser engraving.:
- Tan
- British Tan
- Oxford Mahogany
- Azure Blue
Tannery Finished leathers suitable for laser engraving:
- "Whisky" Aniline leather
Laser engraving is also used on Sparrowhawk Leather's Standard Pilot Logbook cover in Nubuck but this is leather is unsuitable for other leather products.
The artwork and laser engraving is undertaken for Sparrowhawk Leather by a specialist laser engraver using dedicated software and a precision laser. There are 3 areas of cost:
- Setting up the artwork (including preparation / drawing a specification, preparation of the artwork, providing one proof for checking and approval)
- The actual laser engraving
- Courier charges for transporting the leather panel to the laser engraver and returning the laser engraved piece to Sparrowhawk Leather for assembly and stitching and finishing.
Artwork needs to be prepared for each piece. Standard artwork, such as for Sparrowhawk's pilot logbook covers, is not transferable to different sized pieces, as the size of the piece and proportions have to be set up separately.
Images and Artwork
Images must be sourced by you. Be aware Google images are general too small and are often protected by copyright (copyright issues are your responsibility).
- jpg, png, tif or eps file (Vector file, minimum 300 dpi, smaller images may be "blurry")
- Solid black image on white (no colour / grey / half tones will not show up)
- "Black" areas must not be too large (expensive and difficult to get even depth / colour)
- Lines must not be too fine (image / fonts will lose definition)
- Fonts must not be too small (Contact Fiona for laser engraving font list & guide or provide the name typed in the desired font in an image file)
- Images, logos, fonts and phrases not subject to copyright (responsibility of customer)
To test your image ideas for your Sparrowhawk Leather piece, obtain our Laser Engraving Font List & Guide, and obtain an estimate, please Contact Fiona in the first instance.
Fiona Ritchie, Leather Artisan, Sparrowhawk Leather
(Personalisation is one of the qualities that makes your handmade Sparrowhawk Leather piece unique. I only laser engrave the Sparrowhawk Leather pieces I make and do not make personalised patches or labels to apply to mass produced or other premade pieces).