"Bik" ballpoint pen... an industry that develops, a steady design, and the highest sales in the world

Writing with ink pens was not an easy thing decades ago, as it was costly in financial terms, with the possibilities of severe chaos due to the scattering of ink, and the long time it needed to dry, until the invention of “Beck” pens that changed the history of writing.

Bic Crystal Ballpoint Pen, commonly known as Bic, is an inexpensive writing instrument that can be disposed of or lost without regret, compared to ballpoint pens.

This hexagonal pen design, through its transparent tube, you can see the level of ink inside, and this pen was characterized by the ease of writing smoothly without causing tearing of paper, and it can even be written on boards of various materials other than paper, and it is sold in 18 colors in the world.

The Bic pen is more than 70 years old, in which it ranked as the best-selling pen in the world, with 100 billion sold in September 2006, until it became a model for ballpoint pens in the world, and it became an essential part of the permanent collection displayed in the Museum of Art Talking in New York.

All these features may seem traditional today, but in fact this pen, whose simple design has not changed over the past 70 years, was a revolution in the world of ballpoint pens.

BIC Ballpoint Pens have fixed the mess problems of traditional ink pens (Pixels)

The latest revolution invention

In 1944, towards the end of World War II, businessman Marcel Béch bought a factory in Clichy, a suburb north of Paris, with his business partner Edouard Bouvard, under the name Société PPA (later Société Bic). ), "PPA" stands for "Porte-plume and Porte-Mines et Accessoires" that is, mechanical pencils and pencils and their accessories.

Between 1949 and 1950 Bic Cristal pens were designed and BIC invested in Swiss technology capable of forming metal to 0.01 mm (0.00039 in), which could produce a stainless steel ball with a diameter of one millimeter ( 0.039 inch) which allows the ink to flow freely.

Beach developed a viscous, non-clumping ink, and under a ballpoint pen patent licensed from Peru, the company launched Beach Crystal pens in December 1950.

Beech invested heavily in advertising, hiring advertising designer Raymond Savignac in 1952. That year, he won the French Academy Award for Advertising.

In 1953 Pierre Gécigne, advertising executive, advised Beach to shorten his family name on pens and convert the name to "Bic" as an easy-to-remember brand name that would fit the product's post-war branding trends.

atomic pen

Beck's early advertisements in France referred to Beck's pen as the "atomic pen", during the 1950s and 1960s.

The writing tip and special ergonomic design of BIC pens helped transform the global pen market from ballpoint pens to ballpoint pens.

In 1959 Beach brought the pen to the American market, and Beck's pen quickly sold for 29 cents (equivalent to $2.57 in 2020) with the slogan "Writes as first, every time".

In 1965 the French Ministry of Education approved the use of "Bic Crystal" in the classroom.

In September 2006 the Bic Crystal was declared the best selling pen in the world after selling 100 billion of it.

Despite producing multiple designs for ballpoint pens, BIC has maintained the traditional pen design for 70 years (Pixaby)

Evolving industry and consistent design

The Bic Pen in its hexagonal shape resembles a traditional wooden pen, and the pen's polypropylene tube shows the level of ink, a stunning invention of the 1950s.

In 1961 the stainless steel ball was replaced with the much tougher tungsten carbide.

And in 1991 I opened a small hole in the design of the pen cap made of polypropylene to reduce the risk of suffocation when inhaling the cap. This hole was specially designed for those who prefer to bite the pen cap unconsciously, as this hole avoids suffocation if you accidentally swallow it until you reach the The emergency department or even the ambulance arrives, though never try to try this.

Polypropylene was used instead of polystyrene because it better absorbs shock and reduces the chance of the pen cracking or splitting if it falls on the cap.

Bic's traditional pen is the best-selling traditional pen in the world, despite the company issuing a range of advanced designs from ballpoint pens, to women's pens in pink and purple, pens that aroused a wave of ridicule among users who wondered: Have you been using men's pens over the past decades?

But the classic Bic Crystal pen remains the company's main product and one of its main sources of income to date.