Typography Monday! The Braces »
These are mainly used in math, although people looking for a little decorative edge use them as well.
Archive for the ‘Typography’ Category
Typography Monday! The Ampersand »
This comes from the shorthand of a guy named Marcus Tullius Tiro who lived way back in the first century AD. It's a ligature for the Latin word et. Many use it to mean 'and' and it is also used in the names of companies. Like Barnum & Bailey.
Typography Monday! The At »
The at comes from a Latin preposition for ad. It represents the word 'at.'
Typography Monday! The Octothorp »
The octothorp, also called a hash or a pound sign, first was used in cartography. It was used to represent a village. Now it means 'number.'
Typography Monday! The Caret »
This is most commonly used when editing documents. It's a mark you use to signify that something needs to be added. It comes from the Latin phrase it needs.
You And I Will Change The World »
This is my favorite saying. It's actually from a Hebrew song that I just adore (I can hear the tumbling notes bobbing around in my head) and it's something I truly believe. This saying is so important to me that my husband and I had it written along two sides of our chuppah at our wedding.
Typography Monday! The æ »
The æ can be pronounced ash. In English, it represents the greek alpha iota. In some European countries, it represents one of the a vowels.
Typography Monday! The Question Mark »
A question mark is a punctuation mark. It belongs at the end of interrogative sentences.
Typography Monday! The Comma »
The comma is used for separation. The Greek word komma means 'a short clause' hence where our comma comes from. The comma is used as a decimal point in many European countries.
Typography Monday! The Double Dagger »
This mark is used in footnotes. People also call it a double obelus or a double obelisk and a diesis.
Typography Monday! The Pilcrow »
This mark isn't used very often today. It marks the beginning of a section, or paragraph. You've probably seen it as an invisible character in Microsoft Word.
Typography Monday! The Copyright »
A symbol representing a person or group's exclusive right to reproduce, publish or sell his or her original work of authorship. Did you know that you're supposed to put it on the baseline? Not up top?
Typography Monday! The Dagger »
The dagger is a reference mark used in footnotes and to mark the names of those who have died. You can also call this a diesis, an obelus, a cross or an obelisk.
Fortune Telling | An Old Book »
I found this book in a 200-year-old church turned into a hub-bub of an antique store in Metamora, Indiana. It was $2. And worth every penny. The cover was ripped off the book, so the title page is now the cover. This amazing book will tell you your horoscope, teach you how to tell fortunes, decode your dreams and explain palmistry to you.
Glyphs | The Asterisk »
The asterisk. We all use it. Most of us use it to pretty-up a blog post or as an alternate bullet point. But, as with all glyphs, there's more to it than just that. The asterisk was first used in European typography as a special symbol to mark birth dates, and it's first use is traced back 5,000 years to Sumerian pictographs. Today, it's
