A Visual Guide to the Ampersand (Infographic)

This is great! I LOVE the ampersand and use it whenever possible! It’s definitely one of the most beautiful and underrated characters.

Very nice infographic and information. Nice too that you’ve included information about the first printing press of Johannes Gutenberg—definitely a starting point of publishing and a milestone of typography. The HTML character guide is helpful as well. Thanks for the article!

Awesome Jacob,
Beautiful article and very informative.
Thanks a lot.

Your infographic on the amphersand is well done. However I do believe that the amphersand for at&t has also been customized to fit the typography of the mark – it may better fit with those that follow.

good and informative article.

Thanks Jacob. I really enjoyed this, as I do with all your posts!

Cool,& thanks!

Thanks for all the kind words!

Tribute to the Ampersand – Amp-bear-sand ;)

http://society6.com/ebencom/amp-bear-sand-poster_Print

nice collection of &

Nice infographic with lots of tasty data! I noticed that in the “Ampersand to Ampersand > Traditional” section the Goudy Oldstyle ampersand is incorrectly labeled as Akzidenz Grotesk Light.

Love this!! Excellent piece and (note I didn’t use “&”) now I know the proper usage too :)

This is great! So cool. Thanks for this.

Never gonna knew that much about it, if you havent… thanks Jacob.

P.S. I still feel hard to draw this sign.

OMG! can you believe that for a simple symbol like &, this vast amount of work and information be presented?
I liked this article. Thanks.

Great infographic nice and informative!

Superb study of the ampersand. We’re in the mist of possibly re-designing our logo and this will come in handy!

All I know is that its one of the few symbols I have to look at the keyboard to locate…

nice, i think every letter in english has a history from rome to greek

@LD: Haha!

Haha I love the confusion with the treble clef :P

I love typography! thanks for the great article!

Great job!! Looks fabulous and I really enjoyed reading it :-)

I love the ampersand, and use it as a personal (and business!) icon. It reflects my philosophy in life — and, more, additional — and it’s the middle of my name! I even drew one of my own and have a tattoo of it on my ankle, to remind me. THANKS for this great article, I enjoy knowing the etymology as well as the illustrated ampersands.

Very fun and interesting. I have always enjoyed ampersands thoughtfully used in logo design. One point of clarity: In the section towards the bottom, Ampersand to Ampersand, there is an incorrectly identified font. In the second row (Traditional), far right, the ampersand is identified as Akzidenz Grotesk Light. It is Goudy Old Style. Thanks.

Nice infographic about my favorite character in the english language. Interesting about how the name came about, but you didn’t go very in-depth about how the shape of the character came to be. Otherwise it’s awesome.

I dont know why, but I love the ampersand! I think when its used correctly it can really tie pieces together. I don’t know if it is because of its visual characteristics or it’s implied meaning, or maybe both together! Either way, thanks for the fun read!

When I studied design at Stanford, one of the first projects in Art Design 101 was to design an ampersand to communicate an idea. I focused on “sexy” and designed one that looked like it was ready to shimmy off the page.

Hey, our new identity is out on http://www.facebook.com andthn, we have meddled in designing old into the new :-) Do give us your feedback…

I have a tattoo of an ampersand on my back. It’s in Clarendon. It would appear that I draw them the opposite way to the directions in the infographic. The end result is the same though.

Since it is common in handwriting, an ampersand can be used in the middle of a sentence, as long as the text is presented within quotes. This exception is allowed to accurately represent the author’s writing style.

Great article on a wonderful subject, but please correct the ‘Akzidenz grotesque’ in the ‘Traditional’ section. Akzidenz it aint!

Hi Jacob,

Great article. I love the ampersand. And your guide is really great.
Thanks for the work.

Ciao,
Jan Willem

Wow! Really informative and interesting. Thanks for sharing! Will try to share this with kids!

beautiful & highly informative thank you Jacob! (see what i did there)

wow originated from Marcus Tullius, i didn’t see any reference to it in the awesome HBO series, if indeed it’s the same guy: ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EirntGCylDY

What a wonderfully designed post on our friend the ampersand. I totally got out my pen and paper and tried to imitate the fancy ones used in your post. Loved learning the history of this little guy. I find the “8c” put together to symbolize the character some really clever thinking on thier part.

One ampersand in the “Traditional” group of three is mislabeled. You label the third one as AkzidenzGrotesk Light. It is not. I believe it is Goudy Old Style.

Ampersand is the only character representing a meaning instead of a sound.
It’s like a Chinese character.
Typographers love it because they can use it more freely as the 27th character.
Thanks for the historical info.

Great piece for graphics geeks and editorial geeks as well. I look forward to your next tutorial.

The “ampersand”…hum, what can be said about its seductive weirdness? Et (latin for and)…&. A writing construct bridging the servitude of the comma to the tirany of the period, masking as it does with its roccoco compoundness a deceitful beauty, in print alone, but, still reviled as a boring adjunct in the art of rhetoric, lingua activa.

I love articles like this! Incredible job at making the article very readable and aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know why flow charts make things so much more understandable. Anyway, thanks for the history of &.

Nice overview, even for an old hand like me. However, please do change the description of the ampersand labeled Akzidenz Grotesk light to Goudy. Also, it is comic (and embarrassing) that the word “EMBARASSMENT” is missing an “R”.