Ambigram
Encyclopedia
An ambigram is a typographical design or art form that may be read as one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also from another viewpoint, direction, or orientation
. The words readable in the other viewpoint, direction or orientation may be the same or different from the original words. Douglas R. Hofstadter describes an ambigram as a "calligraphic design that manages to squeeze two different readings into the selfsame set of curves." Different ambigram artists (sometimes called ambigramists) may create completely different ambigrams from the same word or words, differing in both style and form.
. Although better known for his children's books and illustrations for Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll, he published two books of invertible illustrations, in which the picture turns into a different image entirely when turned upside down. The last page in his book, Topsys & Turvys contains the phrase THE END, which, when inverted, reads PUZZLE. In Topsys & Turvys Number 2 (1902), Newell ended with a variation on the ambigram in which THE END changes into PUZZLE 2.
From June to September, 1908, the British monthly The Strand published a series of ambigrams by different people in its "Curiosities" column. Of particular interest is the fact that all four of the people submitting ambigrams believed them to be a rare property of particular words. Mitchell T. Lavin, whose "chump" was published in June wrote "I think it is in the only word in the English language which has this peculiarity," while Clarence Williams wrote, about his "Bet" ambigram, "Possibly B is the only letter of the alphabet that will produce such an interesting anomaly."
In 1969, Raymond Loewy
designed the NEW MAN logo, which is still in use today. The DeLorean Motor Company logo was first used in 1975.
John Langdon
and Scott Kim
also each believed that they had invented ambigrams in the 1970s. Langdon and Kim are probably the two artists who have been most responsible for the popularization of ambigrams, but other artists, notably Robert Petrick, who designed the Angel
logo in 1976, also claim to be independent inventors.
The earliest known published reference to the term "ambigram" was by Hofstadter, who attributed the origin of the word to conversations among a small group of friends during 1983–1984. The original 1979 edition of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
featured two 3-D ambigrams on the cover.
Ambigrams became more popular as a result of Dan Brown
incorporating John Langdon's designs into the plot of his bestseller, Angels & Demons, and the DVD release of the Angels & Demons movie contains a bonus chapter called "This is an Ambigram". Langdon also produced the ambigram that was used for some versions of the book's cover. Brown used the name Robert Langdon for the hero in his novels as an homage to John Langdon.
In music, the Grateful Dead
have used ambigrams several times, including on their albums Aoxomoxoa
and American Beauty
respectively.
Ambigrams are exercises in graphic design
that play with optical illusion
s, symmetry
and visual perception
. Some ambigrams feature a relationship between their form
and their content. Ambigrams usually fall into one of several categories:
Rotational : A design that presents several instances of words when rotated through a fixed angle. This is usually 180 degrees, but rotational ambigrams of other angles exist, for example 90 or 45 degrees. The word spelled out from the alternative direction(s) is often the same, but may be a different word to the initially presented form. A simple example is the lower-case abbreviation for "Down", dn, which looks like the lower-case word up when rotated 180 degrees.
Mirror-image : A design that can be read when reflected in a mirror, usually as the same word or phrase both ways. Ambigrams that form different words when viewed in the mirror are also known as glass door ambigrams, because they can be printed on a glass door to be read differently when entering or exiting.
Figure-ground : A design in which the spaces between the letters of one word form another word.
Chain : A design where a word (or sometimes words) are interlinked, forming a repeating chain. Letters are usually overlapped meaning that a word will start partway through another word. Sometimes chain ambigrams are presented in the form of a circle.
Space-filling : Similar to chain ambigrams, but tile to fill the 2-dimensional plane.
Spinonym : An ambigram in which all the letters are made of the same glyph, possibly rotated and/or inverted. WEB is an example of a word that can easily be made into a spinonym. Previously called rotoglyphs or rotaglyphs.
Fractal : A version of space-filling ambigrams where the tiled word branches from itself and then shrinks in a self-similar manner, forming a fractal
. See Scott Kim
's fractal of the word TREE for an animated example.
3-dimensional : A design where an object is presented that will appear to read several letters or words when viewed from different angles. Such designs can be generated using constructive solid geometry
.
Perceptual shift (also called an oscillation) : A design with no symmetry but can be read as two different words depending on how the curves of the letters are interpreted.
Natural :A natural ambigram is a word that possesses one or more of the above symmetries when written in its natural state, requiring no typographic styling. For example, the words "dollop", "suns" and "pod" form natural rotational ambigrams. In some fonts, the word "swims" forms a natural rotational ambigram. The word "bud" forms a natural mirror ambigram when reflected over a vertical axis. The words "CHOICE" and "OXIDE", in all capitals, form natural mirror ambigrams when reflected over a horizontal axis. The word "TOOTH", in all capitals, forms a natural mirror ambigram when its letters are stacked vertically and reflected over a vertical axis.
Symbiotogram : An ambigram that, when rotated 180 degrees, can be read as a different word to the original, e.g., swoop and dooms.
Multi-lingual : An ambigram that can be read one way in one language and another way in a different language. Multi-lingual ambigrams can exist in all of the various styles of ambigrams, with multi-lingual perceptual shift ambigrams being particularly striking.
Computerized methods to automatically create ambigrams have been developed. The earliest, the 'Ambimatic' created in 1996, was letter-based and used a database of 351 letter glyphs in which each letter was mapped to another. This generator could only map a word to itself or to another word that was the same length: because of this, most of the generated ambigrams were of poor quality.
In 2007, the Glyphusion generator, was developed. It uses a more complex method, with a database of more than 400,000 curves, and has two lettering styles.
Transformation of text
Transformation of text is strategies to perform geometric transformations on text , particularly in systems that do not natively support transformation, such as HTML, seven-segment displays and plain text.-Implementation:...
. The words readable in the other viewpoint, direction or orientation may be the same or different from the original words. Douglas R. Hofstadter describes an ambigram as a "calligraphic design that manages to squeeze two different readings into the selfsame set of curves." Different ambigram artists (sometimes called ambigramists) may create completely different ambigrams from the same word or words, differing in both style and form.
Other names
Ambigrams have also been called, among other things:- vertical palindromes (1965)
- designatures (1979)
- inversions (1980)
- FlipScript (2008)
Discovery and popularity
The earliest known non-natural ambigram dates to 1893 by artist Peter NewellPeter Newell
Peter Sheaf Hersey Newell was an American artist and author.A native of McDonough County, Illinois, Newell built a reputation in the 1880s and 1890s for his humorous drawings and poems, which appeared in Harper's Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, Scribner's Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, and...
. Although better known for his children's books and illustrations for Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll, he published two books of invertible illustrations, in which the picture turns into a different image entirely when turned upside down. The last page in his book, Topsys & Turvys contains the phrase THE END, which, when inverted, reads PUZZLE. In Topsys & Turvys Number 2 (1902), Newell ended with a variation on the ambigram in which THE END changes into PUZZLE 2.
From June to September, 1908, the British monthly The Strand published a series of ambigrams by different people in its "Curiosities" column. Of particular interest is the fact that all four of the people submitting ambigrams believed them to be a rare property of particular words. Mitchell T. Lavin, whose "chump" was published in June wrote "I think it is in the only word in the English language which has this peculiarity," while Clarence Williams wrote, about his "Bet" ambigram, "Possibly B is the only letter of the alphabet that will produce such an interesting anomaly."
In 1969, Raymond Loewy
Raymond Loewy
Raymond Loewy was an industrial designer, and the first to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine, on October 31, 1949. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States...
designed the NEW MAN logo, which is still in use today. The DeLorean Motor Company logo was first used in 1975.
John Langdon
John Langdon (typographer)
John Langdon is an American graphic designer, ambigram artist, painter, and writer.The son of George Langdon, a teacher at The Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania, John Langdon attended that school from 1950-1964. He received his bachelor's degree in English from Dickinson College,...
and Scott Kim
Scott Kim
Scott Kim is an American puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as Scientific American and Games, as...
also each believed that they had invented ambigrams in the 1970s. Langdon and Kim are probably the two artists who have been most responsible for the popularization of ambigrams, but other artists, notably Robert Petrick, who designed the Angel
Angel (band)
Angel is a glam rock and heavy metal band from Washington, D.C., formed in the mid-70s by Punky Meadows and Mickie Jones. They were signed to Casablanca Records, and had the image of dressing in white.-History:...
logo in 1976, also claim to be independent inventors.
The earliest known published reference to the term "ambigram" was by Hofstadter, who attributed the origin of the word to conversations among a small group of friends during 1983–1984. The original 1979 edition of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is a book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by his publishing company as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll"....
featured two 3-D ambigrams on the cover.
Ambigrams became more popular as a result of Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
incorporating John Langdon's designs into the plot of his bestseller, Angels & Demons, and the DVD release of the Angels & Demons movie contains a bonus chapter called "This is an Ambigram". Langdon also produced the ambigram that was used for some versions of the book's cover. Brown used the name Robert Langdon for the hero in his novels as an homage to John Langdon.
In music, the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
have used ambigrams several times, including on their albums Aoxomoxoa
Aoxomoxoa
Aoxomoxoa is the third studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was originally titled Earthquake Country. Many Deadheads consider this era of the Dead to be the experimental apex of the band's history. It is also the first album with Tom Constanten as an official member of the band...
and American Beauty
American Beauty (album)
American Beauty is the fifth album by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded between August and September 1970 and originally released in November 1970 by Warner Bros. Records...
respectively.
Ambigram types
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
that play with optical illusion
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
s, symmetry
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
and visual perception
Visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret information and surroundings from the effects of visible light reaching the eye. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision...
. Some ambigrams feature a relationship between their form
Visual appearance
The visual appearance of objects is given by the way in which they reflect and transmit light. The color of objects is determined by the parts of the spectrum of light that are reflected or transmitted without being absorbed...
and their content. Ambigrams usually fall into one of several categories:
Rotational : A design that presents several instances of words when rotated through a fixed angle. This is usually 180 degrees, but rotational ambigrams of other angles exist, for example 90 or 45 degrees. The word spelled out from the alternative direction(s) is often the same, but may be a different word to the initially presented form. A simple example is the lower-case abbreviation for "Down", dn, which looks like the lower-case word up when rotated 180 degrees.
Mirror-image : A design that can be read when reflected in a mirror, usually as the same word or phrase both ways. Ambigrams that form different words when viewed in the mirror are also known as glass door ambigrams, because they can be printed on a glass door to be read differently when entering or exiting.
Figure-ground : A design in which the spaces between the letters of one word form another word.
Chain : A design where a word (or sometimes words) are interlinked, forming a repeating chain. Letters are usually overlapped meaning that a word will start partway through another word. Sometimes chain ambigrams are presented in the form of a circle.
Space-filling : Similar to chain ambigrams, but tile to fill the 2-dimensional plane.
Spinonym : An ambigram in which all the letters are made of the same glyph, possibly rotated and/or inverted. WEB is an example of a word that can easily be made into a spinonym. Previously called rotoglyphs or rotaglyphs.
Fractal : A version of space-filling ambigrams where the tiled word branches from itself and then shrinks in a self-similar manner, forming a fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
. See Scott Kim
Scott Kim
Scott Kim is an American puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as Scientific American and Games, as...
's fractal of the word TREE for an animated example.
3-dimensional : A design where an object is presented that will appear to read several letters or words when viewed from different angles. Such designs can be generated using constructive solid geometry
Constructive solid geometry
Constructive solid geometry is a technique used in solid modeling. Constructive solid geometry allows a modeler to create a complex surface or object by using Boolean operators to combine objects...
.
Perceptual shift (also called an oscillation) : A design with no symmetry but can be read as two different words depending on how the curves of the letters are interpreted.
Natural :A natural ambigram is a word that possesses one or more of the above symmetries when written in its natural state, requiring no typographic styling. For example, the words "dollop", "suns" and "pod" form natural rotational ambigrams. In some fonts, the word "swims" forms a natural rotational ambigram. The word "bud" forms a natural mirror ambigram when reflected over a vertical axis. The words "CHOICE" and "OXIDE", in all capitals, form natural mirror ambigrams when reflected over a horizontal axis. The word "TOOTH", in all capitals, forms a natural mirror ambigram when its letters are stacked vertically and reflected over a vertical axis.
Symbiotogram : An ambigram that, when rotated 180 degrees, can be read as a different word to the original, e.g., swoop and dooms.
Multi-lingual : An ambigram that can be read one way in one language and another way in a different language. Multi-lingual ambigrams can exist in all of the various styles of ambigrams, with multi-lingual perceptual shift ambigrams being particularly striking.
Creating ambigrams
There are no universal guidelines for creating ambigrams, and there are different ways of approaching problems. A number of books suggest methods for creation (including WordPlay and Eye Twisters).Computerized methods to automatically create ambigrams have been developed. The earliest, the 'Ambimatic' created in 1996, was letter-based and used a database of 351 letter glyphs in which each letter was mapped to another. This generator could only map a word to itself or to another word that was the same length: because of this, most of the generated ambigrams were of poor quality.
In 2007, the Glyphusion generator, was developed. It uses a more complex method, with a database of more than 400,000 curves, and has two lettering styles.
See also
- AnagramAnagramAn anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
- Gödel, Escher, BachGödel, Escher, BachGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is a book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by his publishing company as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll"....
by Douglas HofstadterDouglas HofstadterDouglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics... - Mirror writingMirror writingMirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher...
- PalindromePalindromeA palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction, with general allowances for adjustments to punctuation and word dividers....
- Strobogrammatic numberStrobogrammatic numberA strobogrammatic number is a number that, given a base and given a set of glyphs, appears the same whether viewed normally or upside down. In base 10, given a set of glyphs where 0, 1 and 8 are symmetrical around the horizontal axis, and 6 and 9 are the same as each other upside down , the first...
Further reading
- Borgmann, Dmitri A.Dmitri BorgmannDmitri A. Borgmann is an author best known for coining the word logology and for writing Language On Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities, published in 1965. This book led Ross Eckler and Trip Payne to join the National Puzzlers' League...
, Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities, Charles Scribner's Sons (1965) - Kim, ScottScott KimScott Kim is an American puzzle and computer game designer, artist, and author. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as Scientific American and Games, as...
, Inversions: A Catalog of Calligraphic Cartwheels, Byte Books (1981, republished 1996) - Hofstadter, Douglas R., "Metafont, Metamathematics, and Metaphysics: Comments on Donald Knuth's Article 'The Concept of a Meta-Font'" Scientific American (August 1982) (republished, with a postscript, as chapter 13 in the book Metamagical ThemasMetamagical ThemasMetamagical Themas is a collection of eclectic articles written for Scientific American during the early 1980s by Douglas Hofstadter, and published together as a book in 1985 by Basic Books ....
) - Langdon, JohnJohn Langdon (typographer)John Langdon is an American graphic designer, ambigram artist, painter, and writer.The son of George Langdon, a teacher at The Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania, John Langdon attended that school from 1950-1964. He received his bachelor's degree in English from Dickinson College,...
, Wordplay: Ambigrams and Reflections on the Art of Ambigrams, Harcourt Brace (1992, republished 2005) - Hofstadter, Douglas R., Ambigrammi: Un microcosmo ideale per lo studio della creativita (Ambigrams: An Ideal Microworld for the Study of Creativity), Hopefulmonster Editore Firenze (1987) (in Italian)
- Polster, Burkard, Les Ambigrammes l'art de symétriser les mots, Editions Ecritextes (2003)
- Polster, Burkard, Eye Twisters: Ambigrams, Escher, and Illusions (2007)
- Polster, Burkard, Eye Twisters: Ambigrams & Other Visual Puzzles to Amaze and Entertain, Constable (2007)
External links
- Ambigram.com An active web site dedicated to this topic
- Ambigrams, Logos, Word Art by graphic artist John Langdon
- Advice on Ambigrams, John Langdon's tutorial for beginning ambigrammists
- Ambigrams & Fundae by ambigrammist & chaotician Nakul Bhalla
- Inversions by Scott Kim
- Ambigramme.com by Basile Morin (french)
- The story of the invertible symmetrical "Angel" logo and beyond by Robert Petrick
- Ambigrams and wordplay by Punya Mishra
- Ambigramy a Oldřich Pošmurný - dozens of ambigrams
- lovehate by Alessandro Iannuzzo - lovehate ambigram logos
- Gallery by Alessandro Pocaterra 50 ambigrams
- customambigrams.com by graphic artist Clayton Mabey.
- goodandeviltwins.com by Ambigramist Damian Lakey.