Zayre department store branding (1971–1976)
City of St. Louis Park, Minnesota
The fourth logo used by Zayre, a chain of department stores founded in June 1956 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, was designed by Alan Berni & Associates, and rolled out at the beginning of February 1971. Zayre stretched from Massachusetts, west to Minnesota, and south to Florida at its peak.
The name of the store is presented in Roc Mitchell’s then-newly released typeface Dimensia, issued by Alphabet Innovations either in late 1970 or in early 1971. It’s used in a mix of upper- and lowercase characters, slightly obliqued.
The Z mark was presented in many color combinations, mostly orange-and-black, blue-and-black, and blue-and-purple. By early 1976 only the wordmark was in use upon the introduction of an asterisk motif, which in July 1976 was the basis of a new logo set in Cooper Black.
Dimensia is also used for the slogan “Shoppers City”. City of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Zayre Shoppers' City Discount Department Store in West Duluth
13 Comments on “Zayre department store branding (1971–1976)”
Probably the most notable used of Dimensia. Roc’s digital version from around 1999 was named Dimeter, as I posted many moons ago.
Thanks for this, Patrick! I have added Dimeter as an alias to the typeface page.
I think that Zayre Department Stores should come back so can you please start up Zayre Department Stores again thank you very much see you later
Does anyone have a link to Dimeter, as it apparently doesn’t exist anymore?
I’m afraid Dimeter can’t be properly licensed anymore: Roc Mitchell died in 2015, and his fonts have disappeared from the market.
Dimensia was used on a popular brand of yogurt in Quebec for years, and I’d look at it and wonder what the hell it was. Now I know.
Gluk’s Itsadzoke is in a similar mood but not quite the same.
Actually found a tiny graphic, but nothing better. It isn’t made any more.
Here’s a 1984 TV commercial for Crescent Yogurt from Beatrice Foods, featuring Dimensia and ITC Souvenir.
There it is!
But the only yogurt commercial I remember from that era was a horribly catchy one for “Yop-Yop-Yop-Yop Yoplait!”
Hey Florian, I didn’t see your response before! I didn’t necessarily mean a proper font, but even just a scan of the whole alphabet would make me real happy.
Hi Miro, I just scanned the glyph sets of Dimensia and Dimensia Light as shown in the Alphabet Innovations booklets. The glyphs are screened, but I hope the scans are still of use to you. See Flickr for the full-res version.
Thank you so much, this is perfect :)
I was in the grocery store today when my eye was caught by this logo. Somebody somewhere has a version of Dimensia they’re using:
oceanfoods.com/wp-content/u…