Olympic Park Ampersand Sculpture

SHOW ME A SIGN...

I've always wanted to visit Seattle (almost made it in May, when my SO was traveling there on business, but one of those pesky paying jobs I get from time-to-time got in the way....). Anyway, now that I know Seattle's got a rotating ampersand sculpture (how awesome is that?!?), I figure getting there has gotta be my destiny now!

Click on the photo or the link to enjoy a "short long photo" of the ampersand by Striatic, found on Flickr. (Note the beautiful lighting and red-against-gray colorscape—very nice.) See you in Seattle some day...look for me by the neon red ampersand!

Double Daggers

GOTTA LOVE THE GLYPHS, NO. 1

A Beautifully Designed Anicillary Character Gives Me Pause
Yes, it's true, the name of my business, Ampers&® Studio, is centered around, and includes, an ampersand (&) character. Not so surprising. I am, after all, a typographer. And what typographer doesn't love ampersands? I've written about them here.
But in this instance, the letterform giving me pause is that third-order reference mark used in punctuation, a.k.a. the double dagger (‡), pictured here in a graphic I came across on Typography.com. (And isn't it lovely?) The graphic accompanies an article about Reference Marks:
"Daggers come from that archipelago of typographic symbols known as reference marks, which refer readers elsewhere for explanatory or exegetic notes. The traditional first-order reference mark is the asterisk (*)…."
And that, my friends, makes fascinating reading for typography fanatics such as myself (seriously). If you love type, too, you might enjoy reading more from H&FJ News' article, House of Flying Reference Marks, or Quillon & Choil, here.*
A Dire Dagger Dillema
This glyph, in particular, happened to catch my eye because of a situation in a recent project I'd been working on. You see, an asterisk had already been used within the project's text, as had the dagger (the second-order reference mark). So when my client requested to add in a third reference set, I used a double dagger, which is standard operating procedure in typography.
Well, as it happens, the dagger had been used to indicate those deceased individuals mentioned within the text (which, if you think about it, is kind of ironic...). Anyway, to use the double dagger as a reference for a distinguished position held, even though proper, somehow didn't seem right. Further, it was difficult to tell who had been honored and who had passed on! (This would not do at all.) So instead, I threw the rules of typography right out the window (gasp!), and went with a lovely lozenge or diamond (◊), which seems like a much more distinguished mark to use for signifying a distinguished position. So forgive me, my mentors—who taught me the differences between, and proper usage of, EM- EN- and regular ol' dashes—I know the situation called for a double dagger, but "sometimes you just gotta do whatcha gotta do, eh?"
*Check out the asterisked bit at the end of H&FJ's article, an advisory notice from the New Oxford English Dictionary on pronunciation. (Don't you just love it? :)

Ampers& Web Site Review

SITE SCORES 17.5 OUT OF 20—NOT BAD!


This past weekend, I ran into some friends I hadn't seen in quite some time, and they congratulated me on my recent web site award. My confused reply, "What are you talking about?"

Needless to say, I was curious, and they didn't have much more info, as they had heard it from another mutual friend of ours.... So, when I got back to the office this morning, I did a Google search, to see what I could find. (I didn't find any mention of an award, so if someone knows more about that, please share.) What I did find though, was that, apparently, back in February of this year, my website had been reviewed in a local newspaper (see the review online at seacoastonline.com), and scored a respectable 17.5 out of 20. (Who knew?!?)

Anyway, thank you John Shore, for your kind words. It's always nice to be recognized and to hear that someone notices and appreciates your design efforts. Cheers!