The magic of a ballpoint

Creativity changing the world of writing

At Club ADCN we ask ourselves and members on a daily basis, what is creativity? And there’s always a different answer.

Today we listened to a podcast - Stuff you should know, with the title 'Ballpoint pens? Heck yes, ballpoint pens!’. They actually start by saying: ‘We can’t believe people will actually click on a title like this', but it’s now on the ‘best podcast list’ of Spotify, so people did click. Probably because the ballpoint pen is far more interesting than you imagine. For real. It is brilliant in its simplicity and it took the world by storm.

One thing stood out because its development was led by creativity, by thinking different. It was a Hungarian journalist who took a tour in a newspaper facility and noticed the ink of newly pressed papers didn’t smudge, but the ink of his pen did. That’s when he came up with the idea to use the same ink used for newspapers and add a tiny metal ball to the pen that rotates the ink smoothly out but stops it from flowing out (just like a roller deodorant).

Pretty clever, a revolution started by creativity. He thought different, and changed the (writing) world for the better.

Listen to the podcast - not really an urgency, just easy listening when you’re on the go. Afterwards you’ll look different at a pen, probably amazed by the magic of it.

If you have no time for the podcast, then watch this close-up of a ballpoint