I’ve liked ampersands for a long time (probably since I started paying attention to type). That’s the motivation for the new graphic that shows up in the masthead (which won’t look anything close to good if you don’t have the right fonts installed, but I’m trying to maintain quick download times). As an aside — I use Firefox, and while I try to make sure the site is readable with at least IE, I won’t know if the site is illegible with other browsers.

Adobe provides a nice history of the ampersand with some nice examples as well (look especially at the variation within the Poetica typeface!).

While on the topic, people who care about typesetting and typography have (naturally) a lot of nice books to read, but my current favorite is The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst. A pleasure to read if you are easily annoyed by bad kerning, pleased by beautiful font design, etc. It’s the typographic equivalent of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, but unfortunately is not selling as well! Thanks to Thanassi for getting me to read TETS.