Over the past several months, I’ve been busy coordinating a new print run for more Tyvek wallets to be produced and I’m thrilled to announce that today they’re for sale in the sore!

Some of you may have noticed that pretty much all of the Black MICRO Tyvek models have been sold out for several months… as well as most of the Black Original models. Not good, right? I agree! Especially since those are the best selling items. But there’s a lot that goes into a print run and each step needs to be done perfectly or all of the material is wasted. So it’s more important to take the time to get it right than to rush it and make sure things are in stock.

White tyvek

Taking a step back, here are some of the basics. Tyvek starts off as white. All the colors you see are printed on the white, which is why there needs to be a print run. And when I say “print run” this is a large quantity of large press sheets printed by a commercial printer with the special equipment and experience needed to print on Tyvek. In order to meet the minimum order quantities required to work with the best Tyvek printers available, I need to print a lot at once.

Tyvek itself is technically a sheet plastic, which makes it especially difficult to print on. This is my 6th print run and each time we tweak small things to keep incrementally improving. Solid colors are the most challenging things to print on Tyvek, especially to achieve the rich, deep look I’m after. As it happens, black is the most difficult solid color to print. And if you really want a challenge, then you can try a complicated pattern! We’ve done a few new tweaks to this print run to even further improve them and so far I’m really happy with how they came out.

After the printing is finished, we cut them using a special process which I can’t say a whole lot about… except that our tolerances are pretty ridiculous and the place that cuts them does an amazing job. Tyvek really does not like to be cut! And any imperfections make it susceptible to tearing.

From there, they’re sewn in San Francisco using an extra strong synthetic thread. There are a hundred other details we’ve refined throughout the process, which you won’t necessarily be able to explicitly see, but you notice in the feeling of quality achieved. To make a quality product from a traditionally non-precious material takes extra attention to detail. As they say, simple but not easy!