BSA Logo PNG
BSA has been one of the most prominent British bike producers in the 20th century. They started off as a military equipment manufacturer, and by 1919 they’ve opened a production of military-aimed bikes. In time, the enterprise has evolved into production of high-performance – mostly cruiser type – bikes.
Meaning and History
As you surmised, the company existed way before the start of their bike production in 1919. In fact, BSA stands for ‘Birmingham Small Arms’, which gives you an idea. In 1972 the production ceased, but the brand was reintroduced with the same aim in 1978. It can’t be said, however, that it had the same luck as its predecessor.
1919 – 1946
For the entire length of their bike enterprise, BSA used their acronym as a dominant image of their logotype. On the first stage, it was styled differently, however.
Both on official property and products, it was painted red and was spaced out using the dots. The letters were obviously uppercase, but there wasn’t anything special about them.
There also might be small changes, like the distance between the letters, although essentially the logotype was the same wherever it was used.
1946 – 1972
When BSA launched a new generation of bikes with the BSA A7 after the war, they decided to give it a new emblem. This emblem was further used on most property owned by this brand.
First of all, the dots were removed and the letters were placed closer to one another. Secondly, they became tilted to the right a bit. But most crucially, the ‘B’ letter was given a wing, which sprouted from its left top corner. It was styled as a comb – with differently-sized feathers and even intervals between them.
The colors might vary, but the company itself mostly used the red-painted variant, although white and black colorings were also frequently used.
Emblem and Symbol
Until roughly 1936, the bikes wore simple badges of rectangular shapes – either with usual or rounded corners. Afterwards, they started using golden stars of different shapes to hold their logotypes on the side of the bikes. The most frequent variants are a star with many thick tips and a sheriff star with circles on the ends on the tips.
