As a contemporary typehouse, Hoefler & Frere-Jones is peerless. Sometimes I think they should include a bib on their website, as I drool uncontrollably every time I visit. You've seen their work everywhere: newspapers, museums, packaging, ad campaigns, signage, etc. They've infiltrated every cranny of the our environment for good reason: their deliberate approach to type design is rooted in deep, classical exploration. In this post, they trace the history of the ampersand and its variants. (We were surprised to learn that its history predates that of many letters we use.) As a bonus, they explore some theories of how the ampersand got its name.If Hoefler & Frere-Jones ever decides to cast lead type, there won't be a bib big enough to contain my excitement.
Stretch your imaginative eye and you will see the treble clef in the ampersand.
ReplyDeleteInteresting take. Wikipedia contends there is no connection:
ReplyDelete"The clefs developed at the same time as the staff, in the 10th century. Originally, instead of a special clef symbol, the reference line of the staff was simply labeled with the name of the note it was intended to bear: G, F, or C. These were the 'clefs' used for Gregorian chant. Over time, the shapes of these letters became stylized; eventually resulting in the shapes we have today.
The flourish at the top of the G-clef probably derives from a cursive S for "sol", the name for "G" in solfege. In other words, the reason that the G-clef looks the way it does is likely that it is a drawing of a very fancy letter S, pointing to the position of the "sol" (which is a G note) in the "do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-te-do"."