The Funkiest Ampersands You Have Ever Seen
An ampersand is the figure used to represent the word ‘and’, it is widely recognised by the symbol; &. The symbol originates from the combination of the letter E and T, from the Latin word ‘et’. Over time the symbol has evolved from displaying these two letters quite evidently, to the shape we use today in everday writing.
Looking through large collections of typefaces highlights some real creative representations of the ampersand, many of which revert back to the traditional method of displaying the word ‘et’, others head for a more abstract approach. Here is a collection of possibly the funkiest ampersands you have ever seen!
“After the advent of printing in Europe in 1455, printers made extensive use of both the italic and Roman ampersands. Every new typeface and font has included its own style of &. Since the ampersand’s roots go back to Roman times, many languages that use a variation of the Latin alphabet make use of it.”
Source; Wikipedia
Have you come across any particularly strange amperand symbols?
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January 30th, 2008 at 11:53 am
[...] An ampersand is the figure used to represent the word ‘and’, it is widely recognised by the symbol &. Have a look at The Funkiest Ampersands you Have Ever Seen. [...]
January 30th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
That shotgun blanks one (6th from bottom on the right) is awesome! Going to check out that font now!
January 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Wow, what an interesting and original post!
I never knew the & symbol was a latin symbol from the word ‘et’ that’s very cool!
January 30th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Inspiration in you!
My work - it’s good ?
Meu trabalho inspirado em você
veja si esta bom
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Salvador - Bahia - Brazil
January 30th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
If you wanted to use these in an actual web design, one cool technique is to wrap your ampersands in a span:
<span class=”amp”>&</span>
Then you could like like your ten favorite in a row in the CSS, before you list more default stuff like Helvetica, sans-serif.
.amp {
font-family: “Bauhaus-Demi Bold”, “Sinbad Normal”, etc, etc, etc, Helvetia, sans-serif;
}
January 31st, 2008 at 6:23 am
great post! very original.
i would’ve loved some links for each font; i’d love to see how they fit in with the rest of the character set, and to possibly grab the font.
my favs are ItcEras and PlanetTriColore.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:41 am
I love the post, really inspiring. Thnx alot.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Found this article @ smashing magazine.
You have quite interesting collection of ampersands.
Cheers.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
NatWest and Arrus are pretty cool. None of these beat a bold Fontin Sans & though.
Or Monotype Corsiva.
Or Diavlo.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
@Chris:
That requires that the visitor has the font installed in their computer (which is dangerous to assume with any font other than the Web Core ones).
You could, though, use *your* favourite ampersand by wrapping them like that (manually or using some DOM-fu) and using a CSS image replacement technique (still with some limitations, like font size).
February 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
[...] has a nice collection of funky ampersands. I think my favorite is [...]
February 1st, 2008 at 10:05 pm
is it wrong to want a massive tattoo of a funky ampersand? because i do.
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Check this font out. Aprox 15 sec into the clip…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ouw1CPJZ3ZQ
February 4th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
@João Craveiro: That’s why I suggested listing like 10 of them. Chances are, they won’t have most of them, but they MIGHT have one of the 10. If not, it’ll just use a regular one.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
[...] Graphics has an awesome roundup of funky ampersands. I mentioned in the comments a cool thing to “use the best ampersand available” is to [...]
February 4th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
please never use the word funky ever again
February 6th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Man, I love the AmazoneBT-Regular and Freeform721BT-Bold. Sweeeet.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
there is an «esperluette» what I could add to your magnificent list: American Typewriter (ITC)…
best regards
peter
February 12th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Well.. you learn something new everyday! This is a great post, and some of them are indeed very cool.
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February 13th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Excellent!!!!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] The Funkiest Ampersands You Have Ever SeenAn ampersand is the figure used to represent the word ‘and’, it is widely recognized by the symbol &. Have a look at some of the funkiest ampersands you have ever seen. [...]
March 14th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
[...] the word feels much longer that it should be to represent such a short conjunction, and the symbol itself can be far more elegant than a treble clef. The magic of the ampersand comes from the fact [...]
April 14th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Great list!
Did not see the bickham & there.. I’ve used that one several times in graphic design. Gotta love that &.