From Luxury to Everyday Essential: How One Company Revolutionized Writing
When designing products, there is often bias where people tend to think the products they crafted are better than others. However, there are definite ways to objectively differentiate between good and bad designs. Great design must hit two key criteria. One - cater to consumers' preferences and two - integrate functional advantages into the product. Functional advantages are essential components of the design which add objective utility. They include increasing speed, efficiency, comfort, durability, or resolving annoying pain points consumers might have. Great design is not based on personal preferences or style since they are subjective and may change with time.
An excellent example of great design is actually the (now) humble pen. They may seem cheap and ubiquitous now with some being given away at corporate events but prior to the 1950’s pens were a luxury item. That is until a company called Bic came along. You might not have heard of them but chances are you’ve used their pens at least once. Their trademark pen - the Bic Cristal has sold more than 100 billion units worldwide.
Incredibly, the design has remained almost unchanged for 70 years. This was a testament to how well-designed it was.
Back in the 1950s, the average price of pens was around $30 to $200 in today’s money. Bic sold their first pens for under $2.20 each in today’s money. In the 1950’s currency, the retail price was $0.19 and despite 70 years of inflation, their pens are still sold for that price today. The launch was an instant success with the pens selling around 10,000 units daily in France during its first year in 1950. In 1953, this number skyrocketed to 40 million units sold worldwide annually. What’s remarkable is that even if the pen was sold at the same price as its competitors, it would still likely have become one of the best-selling pens.
This was due to the numerous design insights which provided functional advantages. The pen had a hexagonal barrel like a pencil which stopped it from rolling off tables and made it easier to grip. It was made from polystyrene which was strong, cheap, and transparent, allowing the ink level to be seen at all times. There was a tiny hole in the barrel which allowed air to enter and subsequently replace ink as it left the pen. The lid was made from polypropylene which absorbed impacts and also doubled as a clip. Additionally, the lid could also be put on the back when the pen was being used so you have much less chance of accidentally forgetting it. The only major change to the design was the addition of a hole in the lid in 1991 to prevent choking if accidentally swallowed.
Things get even more impressive when looking at the interior. The pen had no moving parts and no springs or complex materials.
Its innovative oil-based ink worked with the ball which when pressed down allows the ink to flow freely and when you stopped writing, the ball would act as a plug preventing ink from coming out.
Ballpoint pens might now be regarded as an everyday object, but it’s worth taking a step back and appreciating what they helped accomplish. According to David Sax, the journalist who wrote the book The Revenge of Analog - “The ballpoint pen was the equivalent of today’s smartphone. Before then, writing was a stationary act that had to be done in a certain environment, on a certain kind of desk, with all these other things to hand that allowed you to write.” It was so good, Sax believes “If the ballpoint didn’t exist and you launched one today on Kickstarter, it would be the biggest thing ever”.
Author Philip Hensher, who also runs a creative writing course at Bath Spa University in the UK, wrote a 2012 book on handwriting called The Missing Ink in which he praised the ballpoint pen. “You have to look, too, at the effect the Bic Biro had on Africa,” Hensher says. “It was marketed by Bic as something very modern. It really transformed African society. There just wasn’t a way for people to write easily before the Bic.”
Essentially, it became the perfect answer to the interview question “Sell me this pen” because you didn’t need to - as the person who asks this question probably already has one :) This design philosophy of creating products based on functional advantages is what makes for good products. They solve problems and make life easier for consumers. At Bellpont, we embrace a similar approach. Though we're not at par when it comes to Bic's level of influence, we draw inspiration from them to shape our development process.
