After 53 years working with type, Pat Lightizer got the ultimate retirement gift: her own font.

The ampersand is nearly 2,000 years old. yet designers still can’t agree on what it should look like. From ancient Roman *et* to hundreds of wildly different & designs, the story behind typography’s favorite squiggle is stranger than you might expect.

The 90s web was loud, ugly, and alive — and that’s exactly why we miss it. Before design systems and AI templates, every page had a pulse and a personality. Today’s web might be faster, but it lost its soul — and maybe it’s time we brought back a little chaos.