# Making an engraved journal cover with the Leatherette Journal Cover Map preset > a full-bleed monochrome city engraved across a journal 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. ## What you 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](https://yxecreations.com/pages/leatherette) (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](/map-designer?preset=leatherette-journal-cover). 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.) ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Engrave a pre-made leatherette journal 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. Watch the first minute - dense street texture at the wrong power turns muddy. Stop and re-dial early rather than late. 5. Wipe down with a dry or barely damp microfiber. ### Engrave a sheet and wrap your own 1. Engrave the art onto a leatherette sheet cut oversized for your notebook (cover + spine + flaps). 2. Cut the wrap outline on the laser in the same job so engraving and cut are registered. 3. 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 tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/leatherette-journal-cover Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/leatherette-journal-cover