About Container BIC Code
A shipping container carries no branding worth the name. It carries an address: three letters of owner code, the category identifier U, six digits of serial, and a check digit boxed off so a yard clerk can verify it by eye. The characters are at least 100 mm high because they have to be read across a stacking bay in rain.
This system takes that discipline literally. RAL 5010 gentian blue on corrugated steel, DIN-lineage condensed stencil letterforms in white, data stacked in a left-aligned column, and a riveted CSC plate holding the numbers nobody markets with. Nothing is centred. Nothing is decorative. Everything is legible at distance and after ten years of salt.
- Origin
- Global — Bureau International des Containers, Paris, registers owner codes for the world fleet
- Era
- 1950–1990 (Ideal X 1956; ISO 6346 marking standard 1960s–70s; CSC convention 1972); DIN 1451 lettering standardised 1931
- Key figures
- Malcom McLean · Keith Tantlinger · Bureau International des Containers · DIN 1451 committee
- Movements
- intermodal containerisation · ISO 6346 marking · DIN technical lettering · industrial stencil practice
Container BIC Code design spec
Colors
Typography
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