As you enter the Mance Creative offices, you might notice this sculpture of the asperand on our shelf.  The asperand (@ symbol) is commonly used today as the “at” in emails and on social media platforms, but its roots are fairly old.

It’s first known use dates to the 16th century when merchants used it to indicate the price per unit of something sold. So if wine was being sold at $12 per bottle, it would be “$12 @ bottle”.

The @ symbol fell out of common use for a while until computer programmer, Ray Tomlinson, needed an uncommonly used symbol to separate the individual name from the address in emails addresses and his choice of “@“ became the standard convention.

Mance Creative is here to help you with all your design, marketing and branding needs…. no matter where you’re @!