Lanyards Explained: Materials, Widths and Fittings for Events and Staff

A lanyard's job is simple — hold an ID badge or pass securely and visibly — but the specific material, width and fitting you choose genuinely affects comfort over a long day, durability over months of use, and how practical it is for the specific badge or item it's carrying. Here's what to know before ordering.

Material options

• Polyester — the most common lanyard material, durable, comfortable and cost-effective, suiting most staff and event applications without any specific reason to choose otherwise.

• Nylon — smoother and slightly more premium-feeling than polyester, often used for a more polished, corporate impression, at a modest cost increase.

• Tubular vs flat weave — tubular lanyards are rounder and often feel more substantial; flat weave lanyards offer a wider, flatter printing surface, giving more visual space for a logo or text.

For most staff and event use, standard polyester in a flat weave offers the best balance of cost, comfort and a clear printing surface for branding.

Width considerations

Lanyard width affects both comfort and visual impact — a narrower lanyard (around 10mm) is more discreet and comfortable for all-day wear, while a wider lanyard (20mm or more) gives considerably more space for branding and text, at the cost of being slightly more noticeable and, for some people, marginally less comfortable over a very long day. Staff wearing a lanyard for a full shift, day after day, often prefer a narrower option; event attendees wearing one for a single day may not notice or mind a wider, more visually prominent version.

Fitting and attachment options

• Swivel clip — the most common fitting, allowing a badge to rotate freely, practical for everyday use where a badge needs to be read from different angles.

• Bulldog clip — a stronger grip suited to heavier items or anything needing a more secure attachment than a simple swivel clip.

• J-hook — designed specifically for badges with a punched slot, offering a very secure, low-profile attachment.

• Breakaway safety clasp — a genuine safety feature that releases under sudden pressure, an important consideration for any environment involving machinery, young children, or situations where a lanyard catching on something could pose a real hazard.

Safety considerations

Breakaway lanyards are worth taking seriously wherever there's any realistic risk of the lanyard catching on equipment, furniture, or being grabbed — schools, healthcare settings, manufacturing and warehouse environments in particular. This isn't legal advice, but it's a genuine, practical safety consideration worth discussing with your health and safety process if your environment involves any of these risk factors, rather than defaulting to a standard non-breakaway lanyard purely on cost grounds.

Printing methods for lanyards

Lanyards are typically printed using dye-sublimation (for full-colour, detailed designs printed directly into the fabric) or screen printing (for simpler, bolder designs, often more cost-effective at scale). Dye-sublimation generally produces a more vibrant, detailed result and tends to be more durable against fading, while screen printing remains a practical, cost-effective choice for simple logo designs ordered in volume.

Ordering for staff vs one-off events

Staff lanyards, worn daily over months or years, benefit from investing in better material quality and a comfortable width, since the cumulative comfort difference matters over sustained daily use. Event lanyards, worn for a single day or a short event, can reasonably prioritise cost-effectiveness and visual impact over long-term comfort, since durability and all-day comfort matter less for a single-use context.

Colour and branding on lanyards

A lanyard's narrow, repeating surface suits simple, bold branding better than intricate detail — similar to the design considerations covered in our guide to custom packaging tape design, where a similarly narrow print surface applies. A repeated logo or short text along the length reads clearly at typical viewing distance, where dense or highly detailed artwork tends to lose clarity at lanyard width.

Lanyard length and adjustability

Standard lanyard length suits most wearers comfortably, but it's worth considering whether an adjustable length option matters for your specific team or event audience — someone considerably taller or shorter than average may find a fixed-length lanyard sits uncomfortably high or low. For a genuinely diverse team or a large public event with a wide range of attendee heights, an adjustable lanyard removes this minor but real discomfort for a subset of wearers who wouldn't otherwise have a way to correct it themselves.

Reordering and stock management

For ongoing staff use, it's worth keeping a small buffer stock of lanyards on hand, since they're a genuinely easy item to lose, damage, or need replacing for new starters. Because lanyard printing setup is typically straightforward and doesn't carry the same one-time digitising cost embroidery does, reordering the same design later is usually quick and low-friction, making it practical to order modest top-up batches as needed rather than committing to an unnecessarily large single order upfront.

A simple way to choose

Choose standard polyester for most everyday use, nylon for a more premium impression. Match width to context — narrower for all-day staff comfort, wider for event visibility. Choose breakaway fittings wherever there's genuine safety risk. And keep branding simple enough to read clearly at the lanyard's actual width. Browse our lanyards range, or visit the Gloss Label homepage for everything else we print.