What to Look For In a Business Briefcase

What to Look For In a Business Briefcase The days of the simple open and shut case are gone -- and we're not talking about procedural crime dramas on TV. The modern business briefcase has a multiplicity of innovative features undreamt of by even the most imaginative door-to-door salesman of a generation past. Knowing what features to look for in a business briefcase is about matching your lifestyle to your accessories. These tips can help.

The ideal business briefcase: A russet gusset?

The most popular quality of the contemporary business briefcase is its light weight. The hard, non-expandable frames of traditional business briefcases could accommodate only so much storage, but today's expandable "briefbags" are designed to keep on growing. Carrying all those files and reports can take a toll on your body, so a lightweight business briefcase is priority number one.

The ability to travel well seems to be the motive for most modern briefcase features. A scratch-resistant exterior is essential to keep your business briefcase looking professional after more than a few daytrips on a crowded airline. Modern business briefcase materials that travel well include aluminum and ballistic nylon.

Multiple carrying options is another useful business briefcase feature. Along with the traditional top handle, a briefcase with a removable shoulder strap is an absolute must.

The modern business briefcase should also be laptop compatible. Carrying pouches designed specifically for technological items are now standard. You'll also want a good combination of interior and exterior pockets of varying sizes for everything from PDAs to water bottles to pens, books, or planners.

The expandable design of modern business briefcases that we mentioned above is enabled by a design feature known as a gusset. A gusset is a patch or fold placed in the bottom or side of a business briefcase that expands in an accordion-like manner to increase storage capacity as the briefcase fills up. Gussets can be single, double, or triple, so if you need to super size your business briefcase, go for the triple gusset, even if it sounds like the name of a figure skating jump.

After all that, it's easy to forget that something as simple as briefcase color still matters. But a well chosen color will give your business briefcase a more professional appearance and mask the nicks and scratches it's bound to pick up through your travels. Color fads aside, black, brown, green, and silver are still the colors of choice for the modern business briefcase.