The maker's seal

Two forms of one mark

The monogram is the letters M and B drawn as one shape — narrow, with softened corners rather than sharp geometry. It is the smallest form of the mark and the one that goes where there is no room for anything else: a woven tab, a button face one day, the corner of a page.

The seal is the monogram set inside a ring, with the line Built one at a time around it. It is the form meant to be stamped: a round impression that reads as a mark of making rather than a logo. It is the same drawing every time, in every material. There is deliberately only one seal — no variants, no seasonal versions — so that a stamp on a record card, a press into a leather patch and the mark on this page are recognisably the same thing.

Where it appears

On the site, the seal is the crooked stamp pressed behind the top of the Projects and Bench Notes pages, and the mark at the foot of every page. On paper it is stamped onto Workshop Notes, record cards and hang tags. On cloth it is stamped onto cotton tape and sewn in. On leather it will be embossed.

How it is made physical

• Hand stamp. The seal, about 4 cm across, is being cast in silicone from a printed mould and mounted on a turned wooden handle — a rubber stamp in the traditional sense. It takes ink for paper and washable textile ink for tape.
• Brass embosser. A brass die of the seal, pressed into damp vegetable-tanned leather, leaves a permanent impression. This is the planned mark for leather patches and tabs; it has not been cut yet.
• Print. For paper in quantity — record cards, tags — the seal is printed, and then usually stamped over anyway, because a stamp is applied by hand and a print is not.

What it means

The seal says that the piece it is on was made in this workshop, by hand, one at a time. It does not say which piece or which version; that is the job of the numbers and the record — see The Workshop Record.