Making an engraved journal cover with the Leatherette Journal Cover Map preset

Difficulty: Beginner · Time: 20–45 minutes · Methods, ranked: 1) Laser engrave on a pre-made laserable leatherette journal (fastest, most giftable), 2) engrave a leatherette/leather sheet and bind or wrap it yourself, 3) the same art engraved on a wooden journal or clipboard cover.

A full-bleed monochrome street map engraved across the cover of a leatherette journal - the city where the journal's stories will happen. The preset ships set up on Florence at a dense, romantic zoom and is tuned for the way leatherette engraves: bold roads, dark water, no border, edge-to-edge texture. It works on pre-made laserable journals, on leatherette sheets you wrap your own cover with, and equally well on real vegetable-tanned leather.

Open the Leatherette Journal Cover Map preset

What You'll Need

Pre-made journal (recommended)

Laserable leatherette journal/notebook (the PU "saddle collection" style blanks - engrave to a contrasting core color). Confirm it's PU leatherette, not PVC - PVC must never go in a laser.
Laser engraver with enough bed for the cover (A5 journal ≈ 215 × 145 mm cover); a honeycomb pin-down or jig to keep the cover flat

Sheet + DIY binding

Laserable leatherette sheet (they come in different thicknesses) or 1–1.5 mm veg-tan leather, contact cement or stitching supplies, the notebook to cover

Step 1 - Start from the preset

Open the Leatherette Journal Cover Map preset. It loads on Florence at zoom 13.8 - dense medieval streets and the Arno cutting through, which is exactly the texture this design thrives on. Search for the city that matters to the journal's owner.

Framing tips:

Zoom 13.5–14.5: you want street-level density that reads as rich texture across the whole cover.
The preset's frame is square (1:1), but journal covers are portrait - switch the export aspect ratio to a taller one (or plan to engrave the square as a centered panel). For a full-bleed A5 cover, a roughly 2:3 portrait crop matches best.
Put the river or the landmark district slightly off-center toward the outer (right) edge of a front cover - the spine side gets visually swallowed.

Step 2 - Tune the layers

One layer group, Cover engraving (Solid mode), as a grayscale engraving palette:

Land - white (#FFFFFF): untouched surface.
Water - dark (#2F2F2F): the deepest engrave; the Arno becomes the cover's anchor stroke.
Parks - mid grey (#777777): light texture pass.
Roads - motorway (width 4), primary (3), secondary (2) in near-black #1A1A1A, and neighborhood streets (width 1) in #2E2E2E. The width-1 street net is what gives the "fabric of the city" feel at journal scale; on very textured leatherette or at small cover sizes, bump streets to 2 so they don't fuzz out.

Engraving is monochrome, so these greys act as power/depth hints: distinct tones = distinct engrave depths if your software maps grayscale to power; otherwise everything non-white engraves uniformly, which still looks sharp.

Step 3 - Export

In the export modal:

Download the high-res PNG (4096 px) for raster engraving (most laser software handles grayscale PNG → power mapping best), or the per-layer SVG if you prefer vector fills.
Background toggle: keep it on for the PNG so land is solid white (no engrave) rather than transparent.
Small-polygon cleanup on - Florence-density maps generate thousands of slivers you don't need.
Mounting holes: none. Nothing gets cut on a pre-made journal. (If you're doing the DIY sheet method and want a stitched edge, the Stitch holes option plus an outer cut line turns the sheet into a sew-it-yourself wrap.)

Choose Your Build Method

Engrave a pre-made leatherette journal

Size the art to the front cover with a 3–5 mm safety margin from the edges and spine, or go true full-bleed if your jig registration is solid.
Jig the journal: square it to the bed against a corner fence and run a low-power frame trace to confirm position. Covers bow - weigh down or pin the edges outside the engrave area.
Engrave: leatherette wants low power / high speed. Run a 15 mm test square on the back cover near the spine to dial in the contrast before committing the front.
Watch the first minute - dense street texture at the wrong power turns muddy. Stop and re-dial early rather than late.
Wipe down with a dry or barely damp microfiber.

Engrave a sheet and wrap your own

Engrave the art onto a leatherette sheet cut oversized for your notebook (cover + spine + flaps).
Cut the wrap outline on the laser in the same job so engraving and cut are registered.
Glue (contact cement, applied to both faces, joined when tack-dry) or stitch the wrap onto the notebook cover.

Wood-cover journal

The same PNG engraves beautifully on bamboo or birch journal covers - deeper power, and the burn tone replaces the leatherette contrast.

Make It Yours

Wrap-around map: widen the crop so the map flows over the spine and onto the back cover - the river crossing the spine is a killer detail.
Engrave a name, date, or "Florence - 2026" in a small clear panel: add a rectangle of untouched land by nudging the frame so a quiet area sits at the bottom corner, then engrave text there in your laser software.
Travel journal series: one journal per city visited, same style, spines lined up on a shelf.
Subtle mode: delete water and parks, keep only the street net at width 1–2 for a whisper-quiet all-over texture.
High-drama mode: invert the idea - set land dark and roads white in the preset, so the laser engraves everything but the streets (long job, stunning result on two-tone leatherette).
Match a set: engrave the same crop on the journal, a leatherette luggage tag, and a patch (both have their own presets) for a coordinated travel kit.
Real leather: on veg-tan, the engrave burns a rich dark brown - finish with leather balm to deepen the contrast.

Open the Leatherette Journal Cover Map preset

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