It can all be traced back to a remark by Robert Bringhurst in his influential book "The Elements of Typographic Style" in which he suggests that in titles it is worth using the most decorative & sign we have (some fonts have different variants available) or even use the italic ampersand in roman context, because the italic & is often more decorative (ultimately they all come from a stylized "et").
I think many have taken it too far and the results sometimes look pretentious. An example still on the safe side (IMHO) is in pg's book:
The ampersand is a subject of major fascination between type designers, and through that - the wider masses of graphic designers. See, for example - http://www.typophile.com/node/66611
Also, this use of 'open-source' for of font characters is confusing. Why use an embedded font for a single image? I was under the impression that it's legal to embed images of characters from fonts (i.e. I could scan and use a '&' set in Garamond from some print), it's just not legal to embed the 'program code' of the font.
I was under the impression that it's legal to embed images of characters from fonts (i.e. I could scan and use a '&' set in Garamond from some print), it's just not legal to embed the 'program code' of the font.
Correct, but then when a user hits Cmd+Plus to scale your page up the fonts will scale nicely but your image-based ampersands will be blurry.
I don't know about Garamond specifically, but copyright applies to images also, and some fonts are copyrighted. In fact, with the automatic copyright that came in with the copyright changes in the 1970s, all modern fonts are copyrighted. Many have been released for public use, but if you want to use an unusual font in your work, you should check to make sure that it is available.
Computer fonts are copyrightable as software, and particularly novel font shapes can register a design patent. But in general there's no legal barrier to redistributing images of type specimens (or even producing a clone font by tracing the outlines).
Every so often, I come across something which makes me feel a certain way. That something is this. That way is best described as follows:
Thousands of years from now, historians (in a more enlightened society, one can only hope) will look back on our time with disdain and pity, for our countless fellow people allowed to suffer due to war, poverty, famine, persecution of various kinds, curable disease, &c. They will find Locke's Natural Rights of Man and wonder how a civilization like ours, with all of our understanding, our might and technological prowess, our impressive wealth, allowed these atrocities to continue. They will undoubtedly find something which is to them like our rosetta stone, something which unlocks an understanding of this phenomenon, something which makes our misguided priorities clear, and they will be ashamed to be born from us.
Yeah, Mark Pilgrim should have used his considerable power to influence geopolitics; rather than highlighting some interesting element of design he could have helped end war or famine!
(Sorry for the snark, but these arguments (along with "Why aren't all scientists ending cancer?" annoy me a lot))
Nothing against Mark Pilgrim, I just felt like sharing the way reading this made me feel. I can't explain to you why some things do this, it's a rare occurrence.
Ampersands are great design elements. I'm not such a big fan of images, so some nice typography can fill in for visual interest. My website uses an ampersand like a logo: http://www.iqdupont.com/
What other character has so much variety on a font to font basis? Most characters are basically the same, give or take serifs, thickness and small curves[1]. An ampersand can look completely different in two font families! Its one of the characters where the font designer gets to go all-out and make something curvey and fun.
Also, ampersand is fun to say.[2]
1. Yes, I know this allows for an incredibly huge variety. But, thats nothing compared to the ways you can make an ampersand.
