Designers employ lots of tricks and tips to lift and enhance a design. One of these is utilising beautiful ampersands. The symbol originated as a ligature of the letters et, (Latin for and) and has become stylised over the years. Here (in no particular order) are my top 10 ampersands:
1 Caslon 540 Italic. To me, this is the queen of ampersands.
2 Trump Mediaeval Italic. You can easily see the et here.
3 Garamond italic. Classic and beautiful.
4 Goudy Old Style – the epitome of elegance.
5 Walkway Bold. I like the simplicity of this.
6 Hoefler Text Italic is another fine example of a cursive ampersand.
7 Monotype Corsiva Regular – very unusual.
8 SouciSans. This is friendly and informal.
9 Electra Bold Cursive. I can’t wait for an opportunity to use this!
10 Nexa Slab Book Regular has a ‘tech’ feel to it.
I hope some of my enthusiasm about typography has rubbed off on you! Try using some of my top 10 ampersands in your own designs – I guarantee you’ll be pleased with the results.
About the author
Annette Peppis leads the team at Peppis Designworks, a creative hub of established publishing industry experts. We create books, branding, marketing material and design templates for leading publishers and businesses. Keep in touch by subscribing to Annette’s bi-monthly emails.
You can read more posts like this in the Typography category of this blog.
