This ultra compact, super light, extremely practical answer to carrying your essentials was inspired and conceived over 12 years ago after we were leaving an outing from the beach. We were bitching about our brick size wallets and decided there must be a better solution - especially for sport and the outdoors. The product had to be small, rugged and stylish. Carry 2 - 3 cards a few coins and some cash - "the 3 c's". Once one the market it became apparent that we should have called it the C4, as condoms became the next item that was fitted in. (But that is another story). Our solution was to mould it in plastic, making it durable, splash and sweat resistant while incorporating simple but elegant styling. It features a two compartment design, one for cards and the other with its integral cash clip to hold your hard earned cash, a recess for coins, condoms or other stuff. Its two covers clip closed securely and the lanyard / key-ring loop gives you carrying options. Using PP plastic meant that we could create an integral hinge, which has a life of over 100,000 of openings, requires no assembly or extra parts and is very small. It also means that the entire product is moulded in a single material which makes recycling it easy. Attention to detail was critical and the "Bortzie" logo was added into the traditional ejector pin marks making them more interesting and part of the design, rather than a blemish on the design. Our contact details were added to the note clip so that it would be predominantly displayed, with the aim of getting more traffic to our site and possible sales of the product. The final result is a wallet that I personally have used and abused for over 10 years. It has been around the world, on many mountain bike rides, snowboarding, hiking and just boring every day use. It was a fun personal project, which not only gave me a chance to design and manufacture my own product, but taught me a few lessons in marketing and distribution as well as.
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AuthorGary Bortz, Director of Bortz Product Design Categories |