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Ambigram

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An animation of a rotationally symmetric ambigram for the word "ambigram"

An ambigram, also sometimes known as an inversion or flipscript, is a graphical figure that spells out one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation. The text spelled out in the other direction or orientation is often the same, but can also be a different text. Douglas R. Hofstadter describes an ambigram as a "calligraphic design that manages to squeeze two different readings into the selfsame set of curves."

Independently, the term "ambigram" is used by by the National Puzzlers' League to mean an ambiguous anagram.

Invention and Popularization

Ambigrams have been independently invented by a number of artists. According to practitioner John Langdon, ambigrams were independently invented by himself and by Scott Kim in the 1970s.[1] Langdon and Kim are probably the two artists who have been most responsible for their popularization, but other artists, notably Robert Petrick, who designed the Angel logo, can also be considered independent inventors. Where earlier ambigrams exist, such as Raymond Loewy's Newman logo, they were isolated occurances.

The earliest known non-natural ambigram dates to 1893 by artist Peter Newell. Although more well known for his children's books and illustrations for Mark Twain and Lewis Caroll, he published two books of invertable 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 ambigramin which THE END changes into PUZZLE 2.

Kim used the name Inversions as the title of his first collection in 1981. The first published reference to "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 much more popular as a result of Dan Brown incorporating them into the plot of his bestseller, Angels & Demons; Langdon produced ambigrams that were used for the book cover, and a link to his website from Brown's meant he was "suddenly inundated" with commissions.[1] In fact the name Robert Langdon (the hero from the novel) is also an appreciation to Mr. John Langdon.[citation needed]. Recently, Langdon was commissioned to design an ambigram for Cupsogue Pictures feature film Monkeyshine.

Today, ambigrams are available on a variety of products and have become popular for tattoos.

Ambigram types

A rotational ambigram for the word "Vegas"
A mirror-image ambigram for the word "Wiki"
A 3-Dimensional ambigram of the letters A, B and C.
Ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter as play on the Wave–particle duality of light.

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
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.
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
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" and "suns" are natural rotational ambigrams. The word 'pod' 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 a natural mirror ambigram 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.
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.
Ambigraf
A style of ambigrams which abide by the conventions of ambigrams but are designed in the graffiti style in terms of line and shape- and context- written on walls as stencils. It is an artform developed by Michael LeMinh Nguyen, a filmmaker and artist from Sydney, Australia.

Ambigrams are exercises in graphic design that play with optical illusions, symmetry and visual perception. Ambigram lovers value especially those with a relation between form and content.

Examples

AmbiScript uses ambigrams to support the manipulation and analysis of genetic data.
Rainbow ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter

Graphic artists use ambigrams because of their unique symmetry. Ambigrams thus appear in commercial logos, covers of books and music albums, and tattoo designs. There is a somewhat popular Life/Death ambigram tattoo.[2] The web site WowTattoos.com the official website of Mark Palmer, who claims to be "the world's leading Ambigram tattoo artist".[3]

Ambigrams feature prominently in Dan Brown's novel, Angels and Demons, of which the first UK release featured an ambigram of the title on the cover. The ambigrams in the novel were designed by graphic artist John Langdon. Since the release of the bestseller sequel The Da Vinci Code, there has been a marked increase in the popularity and awareness of ambigrams, leading to a reprint of John Langdon's book on ambigrams entitled Wordplay.

A symbiotogram ambigram by John Langdon is heavily featured in the movie Monkeyshine. The ambigram reads 'Monkeyshine' one way, and 'Nightingale' when rotated 180 degrees.

Another example appears in the short story Emma Zunz by Jorge Luis Borges. In this case, the surname of the eponymous main character can be read the same way right side up and upside down.

The comicbook New X-Men used ambigram logo, featuring the name of the title.

The following ambigram examples all have rotational symmetry, unless otherwise noted.

Books

Music

Other Logos

The DMC logo, a mirror-image ambigram.

Other Names

Ambigrams have been referred to by other terms, both before the term was coined and afterwards. In the early 1980s, Douglas Hofstadter promoted the idea of multiple names for ambigrams, some associated with particular ambigrammists. Names coined by Hofstadter and others he worked with at the time included ambigram, inversion (Scott Kim), iffyglyph (Greg Huber), twinonym (Roy Leban), symmetrick (Robert Petrick), spinonym, rotoglyph, and twirlogram.

More recently, the FlipScript web service has promoted the term flipscript to refer to their own ambigram products.

Other Meanings

In the National Puzzlers' League, the word "ambigram" was coined by Judith E. Bagai, a former editor of The Enigma, the official organ of The National Puzzlers' League, to mean an ambiguous anagram. In League terminology, an anagram is a rearrangement of letters which is an appropriate comment or description of an original word or phrase, while an antigram is an inappropriate comment or description. An ambigram is one in which the appropriateness is in the eyes of the reader. For example, ANN COULTER rearranged to UNCLEAN ROT is an ambigram, though some could argue that Coulter's self-described polemicizing makes it an anagram.

See also

Look up ambigram in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ambigrams.

References

  • Kim, Scott, Inversions, Byte Books (1981)
  • Hofstadter, Douglas R., "Metafont, Metamathematics, and Metaphysics: Comments on Donald Knuth's Article 'The Concept of a Meta-Font'" Scientific American (August 1982) (republished in the book Metamagical Themas)
  • Langdon, John, Wordplay: Ambigrams and Reflections on the Art of Ambigrams, Harcourt Brace (1992, republished 2005)
  • Hofstadter, Douglas R., Ambigrammi, Hopefulmonster Editore Firenze (1987) (in Italian)
  • Polster, Burkard, Les Ambigrammes l'art de symétriser les mots, Editions Ecritextes (2003) (in French)
  • Polster, Burkard, Eye Twisters: Ambigrams, Escher, and Illusions, web-based book available at http://www.maths.monash.edu.au/~bpolster/ambigram.html (date unknown)
  1. ^ a b "The doodle bug". The Telegraph. April 11 2005. Retrieved 2007-09-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Tattoo of life and death
  3. ^ WowTattoos.com
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