I have a favorite symbol, and that symbol is this: &
I'm not sure how many other people have favorite symbols that reside on their keyboards, but I really like the ampersand. More than the pretty asterisk sitting beside it, and waaaaay more than the tilde that lives at the end of the block. The ampersand is fancy, yet concise. Useful, yet whimsical. Efficient in so many ways and the one symbol that can be dressed up or dressed down depending on the level of formality that's called for.
Back in '08, I spotted this gigantic red ampersand at the Olympia Sculpture Park in Seattle. My heart skipped a beat. So big. So red. So magnificent.
And when I spotted this ampersand last night via www.welovetypography.com, my heart again skipped a beat...because I was laughing so hard when I read the caption: Spampersand.
By the way, if you ever look up the definition of "ampersand" on Wikipedia, it's identified as a logogram which is defined as a grapheme that represents a word or morpheme. Huh? I told you this post was going to bore you...