JAN TSCHICHOLD/ A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMPERSAND + ET y AMPERSANDS

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974, typographer, theorician and teacher) published in 1953 Formenwandlungen der y-Zeichen, a short historical essay dealing with the successive designs of the ampersand glyph. This text is structured by a collection of 288 carefully selected and commented ampersands, which constitues a brief and concise introduction to the history of Western writing and typography. Long unavailable in English, this new translation is published in a facsimile version, faithful to the original design by the author.