Winners & Shortlists

THE UNIVERSAL TYPEFACE

TitleTHE UNIVERSAL TYPEFACE
BrandBIC DEUTSCHLAND
Product/ServiceBIC CRISTAL BALLPOINT PEN
Category B02. CONSUMER PRODUCTS (INCL. DURABLE GOODS)
Entrant Company DDB GERMANY DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY
Advertising Agency DDB GERMANY DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Eric Schoeffler DDB Group Gmbh Cco
Dennis May DDB Group Gmbh Managing Director Creative
Jan Propach DDB Group Gmbh Creative Director
Dominika Zajac/Christian Bueltmann/Fabian Jung DDB Group Gmbh Art Director
Tobias Hecking DDB Group Gmbh Copywriter
Sönke Bruns DDB Group Gmbh Account Manager
Jouke Vuurmanns Media Monks BV Executive Creative Director
Joris Pol Media Monks BV Executive Producer
Quinten Beek Media Monks BV Project Director
Nicolas Mollien Media Monks BV Creative/Art Director
Matthijs Klip Media Monks BV Data Creative
Elbert Niezen/Jorge Garcia Media Monks BV Designer
Maxwell Reed Media Monks BV Animator
Hendrik/Jan De Harder/Nigel Manson Media Monks BV Front/End Developer
Richard Mulder Media Monks BV R/D Developer
Johan Holwerda Media Monks BV Canvas Specialist
Chase Sillevis Media Monks BV Back/End Developer
Matthew Elworthy Media Monks BV Copywriter

The Campaign

Since the first one got shipped in 1950, more than 100 billion cristal ballpoint pens were produced by Bic. The cristal ballpoint is a truly iconic pen. We were tasked with bringing it to people’s attention. www.universaltypeface.com – the site of a unique typography experiment that a multitude of media outlets reported on: Tens of thousands of users from all around the globe are creating the world’s first universal typeface, an ever-changing cross section of all of their handwriting. Powered by the producers of the Bic Cristal ballpoint, the universal pen.

The Brief

We were tasked with making as many people as possible aware of the Bic Cristal ballpoint’s unique character. To tell our story, reports in the press were identified as the best means of communication, as the Cristal ballpoint is such a low interest product.

Results

So far more than 1,7 million letters have been entered into the system by people from more than 140 countries. Reputable press including Washington Post, NBC, Huffington Post and Wired reported on the project. Time magazine called our font “better than comic sans”. Success! Like today’s world the resulting typeface is dynamic and continuously changing in a very hands on, direct way – the universal typeface made possible by the universal pen.

Execution

We started off with specifically targeting typography bloggers to get an enthusiastic design-savvy community to participate in our project and to produce first results. Also social media celebrities were addressed – one free tweet by youtuber “V Sauce” led to almost 100.000 new characters entered into the system. Then, be brought the project into the focus of a broader audience, as we provided mainstream media with our press materials.

The Situation

With over 100 Billion items produced by Bic, the Cristal ballpoint pen is the best selling pen ever. It can be called the world’s pen – the universal pen. Yet this pen is so universal, such a commodity that it hardly gets the attention it deserves. Why should any reputable media outlet report on a ballpoint pen?

The Strategy

The idea: If there’s a universal pen, there should be a universal handwriting. Time for an experiment. On www.theuniversaltypeface.com users, targeted on design and typography blogs and on their social media outlets, enter their own handwriting, which then becomes part of the universal typeface – an ever-changing, evolving font that can be downloaded at various stages of development. In its pure form consisting of all contributions and in special versions moulded from a huge set of demographic data. In essence it’s the first crowd sourced cross-section of human handwriting. As many people from as many countries as possible should participate.