SDA is the name of an Italian courier service, which was established in 1984 in Rome. Today the postal group operates all over the country with yearly revenue of about 600 million euro and almost 1,5 thousand employees across Italy, working as well with international shipments.
Meaning and history
The visual identity of the Italian courier service hasn’t had any major redesigns and rebranding concepts throughout its history, as its original logo, introduced in the 1980s has it all — brightness, confidence, and memorability.
1984 – ????
The SDA logo is composed of intense blue lettering set in two levels — with the italicized enlarged “SDA” on top and a delicate “Express Courier” in thinner lines under it. Both parts feature the same color, which makes the logo balanced and solid.
???? – now
The new versions of the SDA logo featured a lighter blue as the main color and some additional yellow details, which made the whole look more friendly and cool. But with the new color palette, the visual identity became more “mature” and solid, which only added to the main company’s characteristics and its reliability.
Font and color
The upper part of the SDA logo is executed in a custom sans-serif typeface, which was designed for the postal service to represent speed, motion, and dynamic. The smooth angles and inclination of the letters stand for transportation and fast delivery, while the blue color is a representation of responsibility, trustworthiness, and reliability of the service provider.
As for the bottom line, “Express Delivery”, it is written in all capitals of a traditional and simple sans-serif, which is also italicized in order to support the upper level. This part is executed in a font similar to famous Humanist 521 and Gill Sans Cyrillic.