Acanthus Leather Sketchbook Journal by Oberon Design

Handmade by Oberon Design in Santa Rosa, California.

Our Extra Large Journal Sketchbooks are constructed using three pieces of leather. Tooling appears on the front side only, as the spine piece makes wrapping images impossible. We construct the back and spine with a piece of durable, long-lasting black leather.

• Size: 9.5" x 12"
• Hand cast Britannia pewter button and leather thong closure.
• Comes with a blank hardbound book insert included, made with soft white, 65 lb, acid free paper
• A lined template sheet provided facilitates straight lined writing.
• Replacement book fillers available for purchase
• Book Insert size: 8.75 x 11.25 x 1 inch thick, 220 pages (110 sheets)

Our full grain custom tanned domestic bullhide has a medium firm temper which will get soft and supple with use, while still keeping it's structured shape.

Leather is a natural material. Variation in grain, texture and color are bound to occur.

Our Leather: It's not vinyl!

The quality, domestic leather we use is custom tanned for us to facilitate our tooling process. Our art medium, burning images into leather, requires a more natural, less coated surface. Here’s what you can expect as an intrinsic part of the Oberon look that makes each cover unique:

• Small Scars and imperfections owing to the everyday experiences in the life of a steer.
• Dye color variations and streaks where dye saturates around the neck and limb creases in the hide.
• Slight variations in color from one load of leather we receive from the tannery to another.

Try to avoid leaving your leather cover or accessory in direct sunlight or under florescent or bright incandescent lights day after day. The color will fade and once faded there is little to nothing that can be done. The blue/purple spectrum leather dyes are the most susceptible to fading.

"Feed" your cover once a year or so by applying a light even coating of 'Bick 4 Leather Lotion', a product we use in our shop every day to condition our covers before they’re shipped. It’s also available in most shoe repair shops or online under the name Cadillac Boot & Shoe repair lotion.

Don’t drench your cover with conditioner. Biannual applications should be plenty. The application of any cream or oil will darken the color of leather slightly. Our golden rule: test a small spot, go slow.

At Oberon we’re proud of the fact that the design and casting of our Britannia metal line and all our leather work is done "in house". This combined with our source for domestically tanned leather, use of local and domestic businesses for resources such as non-toxic glues and dyes, thread, zippers, and other items used in our leather and pewter processes; in addition to in house production of catalogs and websites, make Oberon Design what it is today: a good old fashioned, hands on, hard working American company.

In 1967, Brendan Smith, the owner and founder of Oberon Design, embarked on a course of artistry that has occupied his life for over forty years. A talented musician and composer, author, gardener and entrepreneur, Brendan steadfastly adhered to a vision of quality and ‘do-it -yourself’ simplicity in his leather artistry and business practices that has stood the test of time. At age seventeen he began sewing leather with a needle and thread then borrowed a sister’s sewing machine. Wedging it inside his bedroom closet, placing a chair in the open door and hanging various tools and findings on the inside of the closet door, he provided himself with a mini leather shop. Many broken needles later, he purchased an aging industrial quality machine and graduated to an attic room where he set up his first real workshop.

When Brendan was seventeen, he cultivated two important relationships: an incongruous friendship with the cowboy owner of a local saddlery shop who mentored him in the nuances of leather craft. At this time he also made friends with a family who owned The Hide House, a local leather supply business. Oberon Design still works with The Hide House, a treasured and honored working friendship of forty-five years. With their help, Brendan developed his skills for precision and design, sketching in notebooks and spending long hours experimenting and creating in situ at the sewing machine. He set up his first retail venue in his hometown, making and selling sandals and hats during the Summer of Love. With his budding success as a craftsman, Brendan began to identify himself with a life of creative process.

During his college years Brendan supported himself with leather craft, expanding into moccasin making, handbags, belts and wearable art in the form of figurative whole-head masks of extraordinary character. He published a ‘how to’ manuscript entitled Brendan’s Leather Book. Humorously well written and illustrated by Brendan, it was favorably reviewed and achieved a healthy round of five editions totaling over 40,000 copies. One Bay Guardian reviewer quipped that “It would charm the hide off a cow." Although out of print, it still enjoys a healthy circulation online and in used bookstores.

Brendan developed a following for his leatherwork during the seventies and eighties under the name Walking Foot Leather. His reputation grew out of his direct rapport with customers in his booth each year at the original Renaissance Pleasure Faires. In the late 1980s he expanded his business to accommodate a large order for leather fanny packs for a national department store chain. From this expansion sprang the concept of leather journal covers whose popularity in museum shops and gift and book stores across the country lead to the creation of Oberon Design as a company that has flourished since 1992.

Beginning in the 1990s, Oberon Design became a vital and well recognized part of the handmade, craft revival in the United States, participating in elite juried venues such as American Craft Council shows and Buyers Market of American Craft, joining the ranks of the most highly recognized craftsmen and women in the U.S.

In 1999, Oberon Design further expanded to include a Britannia metal casting shop that produces the hand cast buttons seen on most Oberon leather covers, and our line of gorgeous metal jewelry, hair accessories and gift items.

In early 2020, Oberon Design merged forces with our long time colleagues in the local leather craft industry. It’s an exciting change and will allow Brendan to enjoy his well-deserved retirement with confidence.
Occidental Leather is a local company, specializing in leather tool belts and bags, with the same care for craftsmanship and quality as Oberon, as well as the same family vibe and core work ethic. In fact, you could say that Occidental Leather and Oberon Design are cut from the same cloth.
As for current and future operations, we continue plugging away the Oberon way, with our same products and the same Oberon flair and artistry, only now with our two companies being able to offer each other so much in terms of resources and support, this is just the beginning of greater things to come.

Find more work by Oberon Design here.