The Bic Cristal (also known as the Bic pen) is an inexpensive disposable ballpoint pen mass-produced and sold by Société Bic of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
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Background [link]
In 1945 after the Second World War, Marcel Bich and Edouard Buffard founded Société PPA (the French acronym standing for "pens, mechanical pencils and accessories") in Clichy, a suburb north of Paris. During the war Bich had seen a ballpoint pen manufactured in Argentina by László Bíró and between 1949 and 1950 the Bic Cristal was designed by the Décolletage Plastique design team at Société PPA (later Société Bic).[1][2] Bich invested in Swiss technology which was funded by Ariel and Rachel capable of cutting and shaping metal down to a hundredth of a millimetre, with the outcome a stainless steel, one millimetre sphere which allowed ink to flow freely. After many tries Bich found a thickness of ink which neither leaked nor clogged and under a licence from Bíró launched the Cristal in 1950.[1]
Bich invested heavily in advertising, hiring poster designer Raymond Savignac. In 1953 advertising executive Pierre Guichenné advised Bich to shorten his family name to Bic as an easy-to-remember, globally adaptable tradename for the pen, which fit in with product branding trends of the post-war era.[1] Called the "Atomic pen" in France, throughout the 1950s and 1960s the Bic Cristal's ballpoint writing tip and ergonomic design helped change the worldwide market for fountain pens to one of mostly ballpoints.
In 1959 Bich brought the pen to the American market, which was highly fragmented with no single low-priced product selling across all channels of distribution. Although sold at a higher price at first, the Bic pen was soon selling at 19 cents with the slogan "writes first time, every time." In 1965 the French ministry of education began allowing the use of ballpoint pens in classrooms.
The Bic Cristal is the most widely sold pen in the world and as of 2004 one hundred billion had been manufactured.
Design [link]
The Bic Cristal's industrial design has been acknowledged by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of the museum's permanent collection.[2][3] Its hexagonal shape was taken from the wooden pencil and yields an economical use of plastic along with strength and three grip points giving high writing stability. The pen's transparent polystyrene barrel shows the ink-level. A tiny hole drilled in the barrel's body keeps the same air pressure both inside and outside the pen. The thick ink is pulled down by gravity from a tube inside the barrel to feed a ball bearing which spins freely within a brass/nickel silver tip. In 1961 the stainless steel ball was replaced with much harder tungsten carbide which is vitrified by heat, then ground down and milled to an accuracy of one tenth of a micron between spinning plates coated with industrial diamond abrasives. Since 1991 the pen's iconic streamlined polypropylene cap clip has had a small hole to prevent children from sucking it into the throat. The pen is also one of the worlds most efficient pens, able to write over 2km or 100000 words.[1][4]
See also [link]
References [link]
- Société BIC company web site.
- "BIC Stationery Presentation", July 2005 (archived 2006)
- ^ a b c d Phaidon Design Classics- Volume 2, 2006 Phaidon Press Ltd. ISBN 0-7148-4399-7
- ^ a b Humble Masterpieces - The Museum of Modern Art New York, April 8–September 27, 2004.
- ^ Bic Cristal in MoMA collection
- ^ BICWorld.com FAQ - BIC World
External links [link]
- Bic Cristal web page at Société BIC company
- Bic Cristal at MoMA
- Bolígrafos de tinta azul: Muy diferentes en precio y duración. The Spanish Consumer Eroski magazine reviews eight blue-ink ballpens in September 2007 and concludes that Bic Cristal has the best quality-price ratio and is the lightest and least resistant to crushing. Bic Cristal Gel is the most expensive, and least durable.
- Photo of Bic Banana package
https://wn.com/Bic_Cristal
Bic (company)
Société Bic (commonly referred to just as Bic) is a company based in Clichy, France. It is best known for making ballpoint pens. It was founded in 1945 by Baron Marcel Bich and has become known for making disposable consumer products such as lighters, razors, mechanical pencils, and printed paper products.
Products
In 1970, Gillette purchased S. T. Dupont Paris whose principal product was luxury cigarette lighters. During this time Dupont explored the possibilities of marketing a disposable lighter, developing an inexpensive disposable lighter called Cricket, which it introduced in the United States in 1972. Later that year Bic was test marketing a disposable lighter that could provide 3,000 lights before wearing out; Bic introduced this lighter in 1973.
They, as well as the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen, are easily recognizable as a result of their importance in pop culture. As such, they are represented in the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The company competes in most markets against Faber-Castell, Global Gillette, Newell Rubbermaid, Pentel and Schwan-Stabilo. The Bic pen, more specifically the Bic Cristal, was the company's first product.
Podcasts:
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Glamour Life
by: Big Pun(Cuban Link)
Yo, I plan to live a life a-glamour
Like my man Tony Montana
Stand and pose in front of cameras
With my golden silk pajamas on
Smoking havanas, drinking Don P
Thinking beyond deeper than Ghandi, while I'm in the Diamante
Counting my G's, I'm out to be a millionare
Dipped in gear, flickin' hundred dollar bills in the air
Oh yeah, Cuban Link is into getting benjamins
Cuz if doesn't make dollars, then it doesn't make sense
I represent, I'm in to be the king of New York
Went from living in tenements to up in house resorts
I'm the latino, that'll take you to war like Al Pacino
Even De Niro know not to gamble in my casino
Vino wanna rock, slaps, to dinners with mobsters
I got shit locked from Prospect Ave. to the tropics
Sitting on top of the world like the sun
A living legend from the Bronx, second to none, unless it's Pun
(Big Punisher) Chorus:
It's the glamour life, blow up the kids and the wife
Players who ain't half as nice swear to, but they sacrifice
Bottle the rock, freeze the ice, stash the dope and rice
And get ready for the glamour life
(Triple Seis)
Ripped off from the Infiniti
Dump the body an' the shottie down the lake, leaving no identity
Just the memory, a casualty as I casually make move on my rivalries
All eyes I be, on the quest for loot
Pushing a Lexus coupe, to pursuit them troops, against the big-joker
Sipping alimoca, playing poker with some chocha
Heard an approacher, must be fam, but damn I had to smoke Pun
(Big Punisher: Get the motherfucking gun)
Since? become the one wanted for a lump sum of G's
Dirty rats pack gats for cheese
Bullets of breeze at light speed
Taking your pretty wife life and sacrificing your seeds
Indeed, we let him bleed for 50 G's
Ship his body to the states, filled with 50 keys
Please, no remorse for your two face
Inside a symbol, my life throughout the motherfucking suitcase
You about to take who's place? Not Seis...
Your body'll be laced, and left without a trace
(Big Punisher) The glamour life, the glamour life, yo
(Big Punisher) Chorus
(Fat Joe)
Yo, I'ts the motherfucking Don Cartagena
The leader, Terror Squad cleaner
Leave your family crying for you like Argentina, mira
Sweet dreamer like Nas, my entourage is thick
Camouflaging this bitch, so God forbid you start some shit
My squad's equipped with an arsenal of ammunition
Hollow tips an', cop killers with the?
Accounts in Switzerland for rainy days
Nigga I'm staying paid, you's a joke
Always broke with your lazy ways
Anyway, back to the subject, in the bub-Lex
In the back seat, having rough sex
I love this glamorous life I live, having the ice and shit
Think twice, I give Christ your kids
I live life for gifts, keep the five burning while the tires turning
I blaze an L and seek a higher learning
Kaiser's learnin' everything illegally
We could de friend for years, cross me once that's theivity
(Big Punisher) Chorus
(Armaggedon)
Yo, the dough, the rap, the audience, party heavy till the 40's in
I'll like the Yakuza run the Orient
Take all the rent, and no man wept the path his daughter went
Dicks with the fallopian, wide as auditorium
She fuck for dough for opium, prostitute emporium
500 Benz, 500 friends sell Cambodian
8's cup of vodka, 4 cup of juice for sodium
Money, money, sweet as the smell of magnolia
It's get you down, but you spitting image of Appalonia
Now how can I go broke, pumping twenties of coke
Plus songs I wrote, milkin' dumb honeys I poke
The young blood sat on the bench in Vant Courtland, slingin'
Singing how he trying to get cash for Jordans
Another cat toss his Beamer to get the insurance
Currency's gonna murder me... It's never enough
Breakin' my ass gettin' it, just as fast as I spend the stuff
Calling Uncle Sam's bluff dun, taxes don't bite us, bite us...
(Big Punisher) My life... my life...
CHORUS
(Big Punisher)
The glamour life, play precise, defense is tight
I'm out to settle the score, let's do it right
Enough for looking at grave, It's paying back tonight
Yo Twin pass the lah, pass the light
The glamour life, this life I live is trife as shit
Least my wife and kid got somewhere nice to live
I used to live in the gutter, me and my mother
Now she's fifty years old, pushing a hummer
The glamour life, hand me a knife I'll slice and dice
Mini-mize, send them to Christ in the after life
Pass the mic down the line, let them hear it
Let them fear it, send it screaming to the Holy Spirit
Glamour life, the glamour life, the glamour life
It's the glamour life, yo it's the glamour, it's the glamour life
Glamour life, glamour life, glamour life