László Bíró, the journalist who originally invented the ballpoint pen, observed children playing with marbles in the street. He noticed how the marbles would roll through puddles of water and leave a trail behind them as they rolled. This gave him the idea for a revolutionary new pen design—one that used a tiny rotating ball in the pen's tip to control the flow of ink.

How the Ballpoint Pen Evolved

Inspired by this observation, Bíró worked with his brother, a chemist, to create a pen with a small ball at the tip. The ball would rotate as the user wrote, picking up ink from a reservoir inside the pen and distributing it evenly on the paper. This design allowed for smooth writing and quick-drying ink, eliminating the smudging problems common with fountain pens.

While Bíró invented the concept, it was Marcel Bich who saw the potential to make the ballpoint pen widely accessible. Bich improved the design and manufacturing process to make the pens affordable and mass-producible—this was how the Bic Cristal pen was born. Bich's clever marketing and innovative production methods turned it into the iconic pen we know today.