Building the brand, store, and print presence for an Alaska leather goods maker.
Aurora Leatherworks makes small-batch, full-grain leather goods in Talkeetna, Alaska — belts, bags, wallets, and jewelry built for travelers headed to Denali and beyond. The work spanned brand identity, a Shopify storefront, and in-store print collateral, all built to carry one consistent story: no mass production, just pieces made to last.
A handmade product needed a brand as honest as the craftsmanship.
Aurora Leatherworks sits a few miles from the gateway to Denali — a place people pass through on their way to something bigger. The brand needed to earn a second look: not another souvenir shop, but a small-batch maker worth remembering.
The identity had to work across three very different surfaces — a logo and color system, a full ecommerce storefront, and a printed rack card handed out in-store and to wholesale partners — without losing consistency between any of them.
- Build a mark and color system that reads "Alaska," not "gift shop"
- Translate that identity into a working Shopify storefront
- Give the brand a printed leave-behind for in-person and wholesale moments
- Keep product photography, copy voice, and visual language consistent across every touchpoint
A mark built from the landscape itself.
The identity centers on a mountain wordmark — Denali's silhouette built into the logotype — paired with a deep purple, cream, and teal palette, a pine-and-plane motif for wayfinding graphics, and a circular "Designed and Made in Talkeetna, Alaska" stamp used as a maker's mark across packaging and print.
A storefront organized the way customers actually shop.
The site groups the full catalog into three clear paths — handbags and purses, messenger and postal bags, and handmade jewelry — with supporting pages for leather care and belt sizing so customers can buy with confidence without a store associate walking them through it.
Featured-product merchandising was built to rotate small-batch, made-to-order pieces — coin pouches, valet trays, and gift cards — so the homepage always reflects what's actually in stock rather than a static catalog.
The copy voice had to earn the "no mass production" claim.
The about page makes the case plainly: made in Alaska, not outsourced; full-grain leather selected to hold up to rain, cold, and travel; products meant to be used and worn, not shelved. The line running through every page — "built for the road ahead" — ties the ecommerce copy back to the print collateral below.
A rack card that works in-store and on the wholesale table.
The printed rack card carries the same brand system into physical retail: the mountain logo and maker's stamp on the front, a full product-category list (belts, purses, holsters, wallets, jewelry, gifts), and a "Made to Last" panel built around genuine leather construction, small-batch production, and the patina promise that makes each piece uniquely the owner's. The reverse side turns into a product lookbook — wallets, padfolios, cut-to-fit belts, purses, crossbody bags, jewelry, and valet trays — anchored by the Talkeetna storefront photo and address.
- Front panel: brand mark, tagline, and full product-category header
- "Made to Last" panel: material story, small-batch promise, and patina as a feature, not a flaw
- QR code linking straight to the Shopify store
- Back panel: photographed product lookbook by category, plus storefront photo and address for walk-in customers
Insert scanned front/back rack card artwork here once hosted (currently supplied as a print-ready PDF).
One story, three surfaces, no seams between them.
A customer can meet Aurora Leatherworks in the Talkeetna storefront, on a wholesale partner's counter, or through a Shopify search result and get the same brand: honest materials, small-batch production, and goods built for the road ahead. The identity, the store, and the print piece all pull from the same mark, palette, and voice — so growing the wholesale side or the online store doesn't mean rebuilding the brand each time.