| The BIC Boy
Ever wonder where the BIC® logo and name came from? What's with that 8-ball-headed boy with the large cudgel-looking instrument behind his back, anyway?
This logo dates from 1950 when BIC (short for Marcel Bich, the company’s founder) ballpoint pens appeared in France bearing this insignia.
In 1952, well-known graphic designer Raymond Savignac created the earliest slogan: "Elle court, elle court, la Pointe BIC®” (it runs, it runs, the BIC® point). An ad slogan that'd be a little tricky today, easily conjuring images of blackened front shirt pockets and stained desk drawers, but it served well in that time and place.
Then, a decade later, to promote the new tungsten-carbide ballpoint pen, appeared the "BIC Boy." According to BIC's website, "Hoping to catch the eyes of children, he designed a schoolboy with his head replaced by the pen’s ball and holding a pen behind his back." Strange, but it stuck. "Bille" stands for ball bearing or marble in French, and it's also slang for face or mug. That helps explain the boy's dark, glittering noggin.
So, the year after it was conceptualized, the schoolboy design was placed in front of the BIC letters, becoming the registered trademark we know today. Though it comes from a time when the company made only ballpoint pens, it has become the brand for the entire pantheon of BIC's stationery products, lighters and shaving razors.
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Next Month...
In our youth, many of us pondered over the odd semantics and logic of the accusative statement "Only you can prevent forest fires!" - some kind of endorsement of anti-arson vigilantism. Let us have a closer look at Smokey the Bear.
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