Bic Cristal, the world’s best-selling ballpoint pen, turns 75 this year, and to celebrate the anniversary of such an icon, Seletti has recreated its legendary form into a larger-than-life lamp.
The Bic Biro: a timeless design icon
Perhaps best known as the Bic Biro, the pen has been ubiquitous since its launch, with a clear, hexagonal plastic case and bold cap. Its manufacturer, Société Bic, revealed in 2006 that it had sold more than one hundred billion pens in the object's history, and the pen is also part of the permanent collection of MoMA.
Its story began in 1930, when Hungarian-Argentine inventor László Bíró conceived the ballpoint mechanism after seeing some children playing with marbles – the lucid spheres leaving a trail that inspired the ball and ink combo.
The ingenious creation caught the eye of Marcel Bich in 1944, and after acquiring the rights to the design, the French entrepreneur invested in innovative Swiss technology to create a stainless steel one-millimetre sphere to replicate Bíró's original idea in a seamless, effortlessly flowing writing instrument.
From writing instrument to lighting tool
'At Seletti, we have always played with the concept of memory-driven design, placing people’s personal memories at the centre of the objects we create,' says Seletti art director Stefano Seletti. 'With “Bic Lamp”, we transform a universally and instantly recognizable shape that lives in everyone’s memory, into something completely new.'
The new ‘Bic Lamp’ replicates the pen at a 12:1 scale, and features floor, pendant and wall versions that honour the writing tool's most recognisable shades of black, red and blue.
The new collection is a great example of Seletti's pop spirit – the Italian brand has always been successful at playing with the domestic vernacular while mixing it with new energy and ideas.
'This project ties into our way of approaching lighting design, with innovative and unconventional concepts. The “Bic Lamp” is the perfect example of how an icon can be reborn to illuminate our homes and our memories.'
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