January 15, 1988, whale scientists at St. Helena Bay, on South Africa’s west coast, observed and photographed a humpback whale cow. They dubbed the whale Ampersand because of the “&”-shaped scar on her tail fin. Thirty-five years later, in February 2023, a team from Whale Expedition SA spotted the same majestic whale, identified by her ampersand. Ten months later, the team saw Ampersand again, this time near Dassen Island.

In 1936, engraver and woodcut artist Allen Lewis (1873-1957) envisioned, designed, engraved, and printed, an Ampersandman shaped like our favorite character. Lewis’s sandman found his way into the “serious and not too serious” pages of the New York Typophiles 1936 Christmas keepsake titled, Diggings from many ampersandhogs, Paul A. Bennett, editor.

The Luxury Ampersand Frolics Group — L&F — offers haute horologerie, premium cigars, fine food & beverages, bespoke jewelry, real estate, publications, luxury lifestyle accessories, and holistic wellness. L&F’s website says that each area of interest reflects “the timeless values we hold dear.” 

On Valentine’s Day 2025, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn, unveiled Loved & Wanted, an initiative created to celebrate the capital’s diversity and reaffirm its commitment to inclusivity and belonging. Schoolgirl Olivia drew a love-heart ampersand that went on to be a lead design for the campaign.

In 2010, University of North Texas design students Bryan Barnes and Jason Perez grew an ampersand from Liriope grass planted in soil and mulch. They called their creation Living Typography.

In September 2013, the MIT List Visual Arts Center and MIT’s radio station WMBR created the Ampersand Concert Series, a joint initiative to explore unique relationships between visual art and innovative music. Percussionist Luke Damrosch and cellist Julia Kent performed the first concert with synchronized video projections.

Some early American gravestone carvers incised ampersands lying on their backs looking skyward, as though promising the deceased connection with heaven. A few of these recumbent ampersands inspired modern typefaces. An example is HWT Van Lanen, designed in 2009 by Matthew Carter for Wisconsin’s Hamilton Wood Type Museum.

Canadian conceptual artist Iain Baxter& (pronounced “Baxter-and”) began to produce art in the late 1950s under his given name, Iain Baxter. In 2005, he legally changed his name, adding the ampersand to emphasize his belief that art depends on a collaborative connection with the viewer.

On November 28, 2017, Football Malaysia LLP (FMLLP) signed an agreement with the sponsorship agency Ampersand Sports, giving the agency exclusive rights to market sponsorships of the Super League, Premier League, Malaysia Cup, and Football Association Cup competitions.

Want a font of ampersands? Saintjean, a 2017 release by the French type foundry Velvetyne, gives you 288 ampersands by designers from around the world. Saintjean continues German typographer Jan Tschichold’s 1953 stride through the centuries, Formenwandlungen der Et-Zeichen [Shape changes of the Et-sign]. Coming Together, the 2010 ampersand collection created for Font Aid IV by the Society of Typographic Aficionados, gives you 484 ampersands by worldwide designers. Adobe’s 1982 font Poetica, by Robert Slimbach, supplies with its letters, 62 ampersands inspired by 16th-century writing masters.

Thousands of businesses worldwide brand themselves with the word Ampersand, or the symbol &, in the company name. The combined net revenue of these ampersand-named companies exceeds trillions of dollars.

Founded in 2016, Ampersand Energy is Africa's first electric transport company. With a presence in Rwanda and Kenya, Ampersand has the longest track record of serving a commercial e-motorcycle fleet and battery swapping network at scale. Ampersand Energy’s mission is to “lead the shift to clean, affordable mobility through unmatched customer experience.”

In 2019, South African artist William Kentridge made the gigantic 3.3-metre-tall (10.8-foot-tall) black bronze sculpture Ampersand. The UK’s Yorkshire Sculpture Park featured Ampersand in its multi-decade exhibition of Kentridge’s sculptural work. Titled The Pull of Gravity, the exhibition is on view at YSP June 28, 2025 – April 19, 2026.

In 2011, Cowan’s Auctions Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, sold — for $11,162.50 — a bejeweled, porcelain, ampersand-shaped teapot designed by Los Angeles-based ceramic artist Adrian Saxe.

In 1904, a beachcomber on Key Biscayne, Florida, picked up an old bottle that had washed ashore. Inside, he found this message scrawled a torn scrap of paper: “Steamship Ampersand lost at sea — April 1878 — all lost — Capt. James Hershoff.”

The Horn Book Magazine is the most distinguished periodical in the field of children's and young adult literature. The Horn Book devoted its May-June 2016 issue entirely to books and essays about collaboration and connection. Book Review Editor Martha V. Parravano titled her opening editorial “&.”

In 1911, French artist Georges Braque stenciled an ampersand onto his cubist painting The Portuguese.

American poet Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962) titled his 1925 privately published book of poems “&”.

Love locks are padlocks that couples lock to a bridge, fence, gate, monument, or similar public structure to symbolize their love. In 2014, the Vancouver design house Tinto Creative made a wall sculpture in the shape of a giant ampersand for Earl’s Kitchen + Bar. Tinto formed their “&”with bronze, gold, and red love locks of various shapes and sizes.

From September 2002 to March 2008, Vertigo (an imprint of DC Comics) published the dystopian science fiction comic book series, Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. The only male mammals to survive the plague that wiped out all others with a Y chromosome are the hero Yorick Brown and his Capuchin monkey named Ampersand.