Portfolio / Branding + digital system
Eight service lines, one single voice.
XRT Logistics moves freight by ground, ocean, air and specialized transport. Each line had grown its own version of the brand: two different reds, two names in circulation and no written rules. We built the system that holds them together — mark, color, type, icons and tone — and documented it in eleven sections the team can apply without us.
01The client
An operator that moves the hard stuff.
XRT Logistics runs ground, ocean, air and specialized freight: from standard truckload to oversized loads, vehicle transport and project moves planned piece by piece.
That range is their commercial advantage and it was their brand problem. A customer arriving through vehicle transport and one arriving through project freight were looking at two different companies. The system exists so they see one.
Service verticals
- 01Ground / FTL & LTL
- 02Ocean freight
- 03Air freight
- 04Heavy haul / oversized
- 05Vehicle transport
- 06Warehousing
- 07Intermodal
- 08Project freight
Our role
We are XRT's ongoing digital partner: website, service pages, SEO and lead-capture flows. The brand system grew out of that work — out of needing firm rules to keep building the ecosystem without improvising on every piece.
02Before standardizing
What already exists, what needs alignment, what's missing.
No system starts from a blank page. The first deliverable was an honest inventory of the brand already out in the market.
The crossed X monogram, XRT red as the primary color and the red/white container livery already circulate and work. They carry into the system untouched.
Red shifted by application: a brighter crimson on the wordmark against a muted rose on container renders. And the mark appeared under both “XRT Logistics” and “XRT Holdings / XRT Group” with no documented relationship, no minimum size and no clear space.
A defined color and type system, logo usage rules, an icon set for the service lines, a photography direction, and reusable templates for web, print and signage.
03The idea
The concept everything else answers to.
Complex logistics, made simple.
XRT doesn't sell trucks, containers or planes. It sells the certainty that a shipment — however specialized, however far, however many modes it needs — moves under one coordinated plan.
Routes, carriers, documentation and timing are inherently complicated. The job is removing that complexity from the customer's side, not pretending it doesn't exist. Every piece of the brand is measured against that line: if it adds confusion, it doesn't belong in the system.
CommandCoordinationControl
04What we stand on
The operating principles.
Move any freight with a clear plan behind it.
Every shipment is routed, quoted, scheduled and tracked, so clients never have to piece the operation together themselves.
Become the freight partner hard shipments look for.
The default choice for cargo other carriers turn away — heavy, oversized, time-critical, multi-modal.
Accountability, always answered.
A load has a name, a phone number and a status. No black boxes, no dropped handoffs.
05How we sound
Direct. Physical. Precise.
Direct
Short sentences. Concrete nouns. Say what will be moved, when, and by whom.
Grounded
The voice of an operator, not a marketer. Miles, hours, weights and lanes — never “solutions.”
Precise
Numbers where numbers help — load specs, cutoffs, transit times.
Accountable
First person, plural. We commit, we own it, we answer.
Do write like this
53-ft dry van, Dallas to Newark, Tuesday pickup. Confirmed rate, tracked door-to-door.
Don't write like this
Leveraging cutting-edge, end-to-end supply chain synergies to unlock your freight's full potential.
Do write like this
Your driver: Marcus. On the road since 6:14 AM. ETA 3:40 PM.
Don't write like this
Our proactive team is empowering seamless mobility experiences for stakeholders.
06The mark
Construction, clear space and variants.
Primary lockup
The “XRT” wordmark paired with the crossed X monogram and the “Logistics” descriptor. The X is the load-bearing element: its stroke, angle and proportion are never modified.
Clear space
Minimum breathing room equals the height of the X on all four sides. Nothing crosses it — not type, not a photography edge, not another logo.
Minimum size
24 px on screen, 8 mm in print. Below that the descriptor stops reading and the monogram is used alone.
Approved variants
Use the primary lockup
At full contrast, on a neutral background, with its clear space kept free.
Don't stretch or squash it
The X proportions are fixed. Always scale from a corner.
Don't rotate it
The mark reads horizontally. There is no vertical or diagonal version.
Don't recolor it
Approved palette only. No gradients, no approximate reds.
Don't reduce contrast
Never red on red, never ink on ink.
Don't set it on busy backgrounds
Use a solid field or a masked area of the photograph.
07Palette
Red, ink, steel, fog, paper.
Primary · Accent
- HEX
- #B8232E
- RGB
- 184 · 35 · 46
- CMYK
- 15 · 100 · 90 · 10
- Pantone
- 1795 C (approx.)
Base · Text
- HEX
- #0E0E10
- RGB
- 14 · 14 · 16
- CMYK
- 75 · 68 · 65 · 90
Secondary
- HEX
- #4A4E54
- RGB
- 74 · 78 · 84
- CMYK
- 65 · 55 · 45 · 30
Divider · Line
- HEX
- #D4D6D8
- RGB
- 212 · 214 · 216
- CMYK
- 15 · 10 · 10 · 0
Surface
- HEX
- #F5F3EE
- RGB
- 245 · 243 · 238
- CMYK
- 3 · 3 · 6 · 0
08Type system
A technical sans, a neutral body, a monospace label.
Space Grotesk
Aa Bb Cc — 0123456789
Regular 400 · Medium 500 · SemiBold 600 · Bold 700
Inter
Aa Bb Cc — 0123456789
Regular 400 · Medium 500 · SemiBold 600
JetBrains Mono
Aa Bb Cc — 0123456789
Regular 400 · Medium 500
Move the hard stuff.
96 / 88 · -3% · 700Every load, engineered.
64 / 62 · -2% · 700Coordinated across modes.
40 / 44 · -1.5% · 600Freight that has a name, a route and a person accountable for it.
22 / 32 · 0 · 400Ground, ocean, air, heavy haul, vehicle transport, intermodal and warehousing — one plan.
17 / 26 · 0 · 400Section · 03 — Principles
12 / 16 · 14% · 500 UP09Icon system
One line, one grid, one voice.
Eight icons, one per service line, drawn to the same rules. The rules matter more than the eight: they are what lets the ninth — drawn a year from now by someone else — still belong to the set.
- 24 × 24
- Pixel grid
- 1.5 px
- Stroke · round cap
- 1 px
- Uniform corner radius
- 2
- Allowed colors: ink or red
10The brand in use
From container livery to landing page.
The inherited application, carrying the “XRT Holdings” name and a red that doesn't match the wordmark. Exactly the kind of drift the system documents and corrects.
XRT LOGISTICSFull ink, monogram in red, details set in monospace.
Move the hard stuff. On plan.
Ground, ocean, air, heavy haul and specialized freight under one coordinated operation.
→ Request a quoteThe same system applied to the medium we already ran: the home page of the site we maintain for XRT.
11The document
Eleven sections, one system.
The final deliverable is a thirteen-page brand book. Here it is in full, exactly as the client received it: open any section to see it at full size.
The work continues
A logo is not a system.
A system is what lets the next piece — a landing page, a container, a card, an icon that doesn't exist yet — come out right without asking again. If your brand has grown in several directions and every team uses it their own way, that is what we build.
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