I got the Scott Kim book when it was published in 1981 and tried doing some of that stuff myself for a short while. It's not easy, but it can be fun. I find it interesting but ultimately kind of a novelty.
Did you know Scott Kim designed the original Adobe logo? Not only that, some of the illustrations in his book were done using a predecessor of PostScript called JaM. The book was published in 1981 by Byte magazine and has a "backword" by Jef Raskin, the guy who started the Macintosh project at Apple.
Kim's stuff is more interesting intellectually, but Langdon's stuff is more aesthetically pleasing.
I hope you can read it. It's got some awkward spots, but it's sometimes unavoidable with these things. I'm sure it could be improved, but I gotta stop myself before I fritter away any more time. (As if I've got nothing better to do... Sheesh. :-)
I just got around to taking a good look at Kim's site. His work has gotten better since he wrote Inversions. I especially like some of the animated pieces. (I think maybe he needs to pay some attention to his site, though. Nearly all the links on his "links" page are dead.)
If you can find a copy Inversions, it has lots of tips and strategy advice for doing ambigrams, although you can gleen quite a bit just by analyzing existing ones.
Kenn -- I am embarassed to say, that I don't recall. It has been a while since I last looked through it. However, I will look at it tonight when I get home. Mr. Langdon is a very nice person. Extremely so. If you have questions, I'm sure he would answer them.
Unlike most of you, I don't have the luxury of working from home. I work in an office that is separate from my home. Not completely different from Dilbert. :^\
Hey, that's not bad! The o/a works better in the first one, I think. I don't know what you can do with the p/p. I like the t/y in the second one better.
The cerulean "typography" ambigram is good, but it looks like Greek to me. Probably because of the t/y and the p/p forms. The funny thing about yours was that I immediately read it as "typography" but I had difficulty picking out individual letters.
Picking out letters seems to be a problem I did a straw poll with some of these ambigrams and a couple I did myself, the quick glance allows people to read it but does not give the impression that it can rotate, blackletter seems to be the more effective, so here's one that I was playing with
I think Tim and I are experiencing what you did 20-some years ago.
the Typophile ambigram was really bothering.
typo p hile t=e y=l p=i o=h and flip the p.
blackletter and conventional, struck out.
I sketched out some cursive letters and thought of suburban from emigre, with the lowercase l and y being the same glyph flipped.
That made me decide that a script skeleton would work, but I'd have to fudge a bit on the problematic h/o combination...
the bottom one is a half-finished take on word balloon, forum banter, etc.
Tim (or Mark), do either of you want to take this and do some of your cool blackletter...while maintaining a script skeleton...i don't know if it'd work.
Tim, I like your 'typography' as a late entry for the Tee contest or an early favorite in the Typophile Tattoo contest.
I have been struggling with typophile - at the moment I don't see an answer, especially the HO combination I think your script answer is close (as per John Langdon's City of Brotherly = Philadelphia) - I'll carry on fettling, "absorbing" doesn't really cover it though. Tim
I intentionally put in breaks in the y/l in hopes that it would make the o/h trick less obvious. (My theory is that it helps to give the unambiguous characters a bit of ambiguity to make the unavoidably ambiguous ones blend in better.)
I had the basic idea for the last two last week, but it was coming out all ugly. I couldn't get the o-p-h to work. Forgetting about it for a while helped.
Far prefer the non loopy version, italicising it seems to add to the legibility. The only way I could get past all the loops in the middle was this - still not a genuine solution as I cheated the e.
It's an interesting strategy to use all those swashes and loops. They slip back and forth between being parts of characters or decorative elements depending on how you look at it. The tail on the y that becomes a dot on the i is great.
And I, too, like Martin's ambigram t-shirt using Poetica. I like the controlled "misuse" of glyphs to represent other glyphs. I've attached my own thoughtype 2002 logo, created using one of my friend Cyrus Highsmith (of Font Bureau fame) experimental typefaces (and the CIA compendium of Jens Gehlhaar for the subhead) because it's quite the opposite of an ambigram: it may not be really "read", not even in a mirror.
This seemed like fun so I gave it a try, I have a lot of homework this weekend, so I couldn't give it too much of my time, but It's in a pretty decent state. I'm a 2nd year design student, so crits are more then welcome.
Just new to this forum and I really like the ambigrams that you made here. How do you do that? do you use a certain program? How do you edit the fonts? Is there a 'simple mirroring program'?
Well, I worked on paper to work out the rough ideas and then transferred it to Illustrator to draw and revise, drawing the first half and then rotating or reflecting it and altering it and finally join the two halves. I don't start off with a font just a calligraphic thought. Tim
for example: the one you posted on october 11th. how do you get it with all the long curls and stuff. Really great.
Though it shouldn't be too hard to make a program that automatically mirrors it. So all you see will show immediately in mirror -> easy adjusting
I will try some things Want to work out a nice one for my american football team 'Amsterdam Crusaders' or 'Crusaders'. For a t-shirt and of course the name of every beautiful girl I meet ;-)
The long curls just developed themselves because I needed to make the descenders of the p separate when read upsidedown. I find it a lot quicker to draw them out on paper first and make amends as I'm going, plus I can turn the paper around faster than Illustrator
I installed illustrator. tried working with it, but there are so many options that I find it quite difficult to get it the way I want. Isn't there a short tutorial on how to adjust the fonts?
What is the font you are using? of a good font to start with?
That is a great start, works well and is legible (as legible as this kind of thing gets). I would take this scan into Illustrator and start drawing it up, the only comment I would make is that the slopes on the n should be a similar weight to the crossbars. I understand about the confusion that Illustrator can produce, but use will help. As for getting started in Illustrator, Leslie Carbarga's The Logo, Font, and Lettering Bible, (http://www.logofontandlettering.com/) this book is a good place to start, although I would recommend using layers
I just started making ambigrams, and I wondered what you all think of my first one. It is one of my name: aafke. I'm Dutch, so I don't think you can read my name, but I hope you at least like the ambigram.
This makes a nice image, however, some suggestions to improve legibility if you add a spur to the bottom of the a, flip the f so that the serif overhangs to the right, and connect the leg of the k to the counter of the a and try aligning it with the baseline of the first a and last e, and lastly the centre of your background image has a circle which is distracting. Tim
Micheal Young wrote: "This seemed like fun so I gave it a try, I have a lot of homework this weekend, so I couldn't give it too much of my time, but It's in a pretty decent state."
Congratulations. Yours is the first that didn't look like "Typou Badly" to me. I was looking in google for ambigrams, and that's what I thought it said at first. Intrigued, I came here, and wow! Nice artwork, people! =D
I've been struggling with this one for a while. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I think this is more along the lines of what Mr. Langdon calls a "Symbiotogram". It's intended for the logo for an editorial piece called "Myriad" - which is about all "people".
What do you think about the ’Illuminati’ ambigram in the Da Vinci Code? Do you think that the way Dan Brown has used the ambigram works well within the story?
It has been implied that the Illuminati were aware of ambigrams. How much truth do you believe there is in this?
There was a mystic called Abraham Abulafi (c.1240-1292), who used a method to combine letters, reversing and rolling them around to achieve a state of ’wisdom and knowledge’. I wonder if there is any evidence that secret societies used wordlplay.
Dan Brown, as much as I love how he has sent the masses to Google in search of ambigrams they can get tattooed, is not a historian. His approach to fiction is that if there is anything he personally does not know, he makes something up, even if a little research would tell him something different. It is safe to say that the reason ambigrams appear in the book is that John Langdon shares a name with Brown’s protagonist, Robert Langdon, and that brought them together.
But of course secret societies use wordplay. The “ICHTHUS” acronym comes from the time when Christianity was a secret society.
By wordplay I was referring to ambigrams, and the secret society the Illuminati... as Dan Brown claims that the ’Illuminati understood the symmetry of ambigrams’.
Mark’s ambigram of the word “Ambigram” above is excellent - I’ve been wanting to draw an ambigram of this word for a while but have not found a pleasing solution yet. I’m very jealous!
I’ve just updated John Langdon’s site
with this new awesome Aerosmith
ambigram. Does anybody have the new book? Other gems in there as well.
I’m surprised that this was not up on his site sooner...as I saw it displayed in the annual ANNX design competition at Drexel spraypainted onto the floor. This is an excellent piece, too bad it was never really used! (according to John) I should be getting the book for xmas, it’s on my wishlist anyways!
Ah, You’re a Dragon! What year? Representing class of ’04. When I first arrived, the CoMad office had a “media arts” ambigram on the floor under the entrance. Is that still around anywhere?
I’m class of ’07. I haven’t seen that around, it’s probably gone. I work with John on his comissioned ambigrams since he’s so busy, he sends me sketches and I digitze/refine them if need be. It’s neat seeing what he’s doing.
Get at me when you need a coOp. We need more type-conscious people at my place.
I’m actually working at RCA Records in NYC as we speak (well not this minute but I’m already on my co-op cycle.) Where are you working? I’m always interested in contacts for after school.
hrant: Langdon actually does Symbiotagrams that are along that idea...where the word is flipped and it becomes the opposite. True/False etc. I’ve done a black/white one but it was a little iffy at one point so i never ’finished’ it..just have the sketch in my sketch book.
He’s got all sorts of examples of ’irregular’ ambigrams, his Philosophy ambigram turns upside down and says Art & Science, he’s done figure/ground relationships etc....look here for a few examples: http://johnlangdon.net/asymmetrical.html I think he enjoys playing with the words that the names don’t really matter as much as the beauty of the final product. :-)
3.Oct.2003 1.25pm
Hey! Cool! I hadn't seen the scottkim site before. I have John's book, his stuff does make you think.
3.Oct.2003 3.59pm
Where can I find a John Langdon book?
3.Oct.2003 8.05pm
I got the Scott Kim book when it was published in 1981 and tried doing some of that stuff myself for a short while. It's not easy, but it can be fun. I find it interesting but ultimately kind of a novelty.
Did you know Scott Kim designed the original Adobe logo? Not only that, some of the illustrations in his book were done using a predecessor of PostScript called JaM. The book was published in 1981 by Byte magazine and has a "backword" by Jef Raskin, the guy who started the Macintosh project at Apple.
Kim's stuff is more interesting intellectually, but Langdon's stuff is more aesthetically pleasing.
4.Oct.2003 8.04am
Ahhh, ambigrams. I believe some of these can be found in Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas.
4.Oct.2003 8.35am
There is also a Kim/Hofstadter connection: Hofstadter wrote the foreword to Kim's book, and Kim shows up frequently in Hofstadter's book.
4.Oct.2003 5.02pm
For bj:
I hope you can read it. It's got some awkward spots, but it's
sometimes unavoidable with these things. I'm sure it could
be improved, but I gotta stop myself before I fritter away
any more time. (As if I've got nothing better to do... Sheesh. :-)
5.Oct.2003 9.52am
Mark, thanks for that...
These treatments all seem suitable for framing,
and this one is no exception.
"I gotta stop myself before I fritter away any more time."
That's a great quote....
5.Oct.2003 11.00am
You're welcome.
These things can be pretty absorbing to work on. They're a
kind of puzzle, but you often don't know if a satisfying
solution even exists.
Blackletter is well suited to ambigrams due its many
ambiguous forms. In this case, it also happened fit the
words in a rather perverse way.
5.Oct.2003 5.09pm
had to try it...for some reason
square letters provided an oddball solution,
but refinement still lacking.
It is quite the puzzle...during the week
i'm going to give 'typophile' a shot.
seems like a higher degree of difficulty.
bj
5.Oct.2003 8.39pm
rereading this, the words didn't come out quite right ;;;
What I meant was the word 'typophile' looks to be
more difficult than a word like this
because of the particular letter pairings.
granted, this solution is pedestrian...
bj
5.Oct.2003 9.10pm
I just got around to taking a good look at Kim's site. His
work has gotten better since he wrote Inversions. I
especially like some of the animated pieces. (I think maybe
he needs to pay some attention to his site, though. Nearly
all the links on his "links" page are dead.)
If you can find a copy Inversions, it has lots of tips
and strategy advice for doing ambigrams, although you can
gleen quite a bit just by analyzing existing ones.
6.Oct.2003 6.46am
holeee....
Tiffany, does the Langdon book have tips and tricks?
This is like Hunter S. Thompson typography,
gonzo type...
6.Oct.2003 8.49am
Kenn -- I am embarassed to say, that I don't recall. It has been a while since I last looked through it. However, I will look at it tonight when I get home. Mr. Langdon is a very nice person. Extremely so. If you have questions, I'm sure he would answer them.
Unlike most of you, I don't have the luxury of working from home. I work in an office that is separate from my home. Not completely different from Dilbert. :^\
Mark -- Nice!!!
6.Oct.2003 9.44am
Aww hell! I was going to post something about this on Typographi.ca. You totally scooped me. THANKS A LOT.
I've owned the Langdon book for several years, and I count it as one of the many things that steered me into being a type designer. It's awesome.
6.Oct.2003 11.07am
>> Aww hell! I was going to post something about this on Typographi.ca.
Dyana, please, post something at t'graphica! Totally.
Share this work with as many people as possible.
btw, I can't be credited with a scoop, I first saw it at YH*,
as mentioned in the first post.
And you guys all have John's book!
bj
*YH is www.yayhooray.com
6.Oct.2003 11.13am
I will. Soon. When I have time. I have a jpeg and some stories to share myself. I just need to finish it.... someday.
6.Oct.2003 4.21pm
That was great, Mark!
Joachim Müller-Lanc
6.Oct.2003 7.39pm
Thanks!
Is there anywhere Joachim's creation can be seen online?
6.Oct.2003 7.51pm
Joachim is especially talented in combining positive/negative forms - must be part of his Japanese leanings.
hhp
7.Oct.2003 4.38am
Mark - I just asked Joachim if he'd like to post links to any of his.
7.Oct.2003 8.25pm
John's the main reason I stayed at Drexel, and am fascinated by type.
Eric P., e-mail John for a copy of his book.
7.Oct.2003 10.37pm
typography.eps.zip (44.4 k)
7.Oct.2003 10.45pm
I'd like to get an ambigram tattoo I decided.
The eps file above...if anyone would like
to mess with this...a few combinations are
problematic. Collaboration appreciated.
7.Oct.2003 10.48pm
I haven't had time to follow all the links on the
Scott Kim site, but googling ambigram and typography
revealed this.
http://cerulean.st/ambigram/typography.html
8.Oct.2003 7.23am
Hey, that's not bad! The o/a works better in the first one, I think. I don't know what you can do with the p/p. I like the t/y in the second one better.
The cerulean "typography" ambigram is good, but it looks like Greek to me. Probably because of the t/y and the p/p forms. The funny thing about yours was that I immediately read it as "typography" but I had difficulty picking out individual letters.
11.Oct.2003 9.19am
Picking out letters seems to be a problem I did a straw poll with some of these ambigrams and a couple I did myself, the quick glance allows people to read it but does not give the impression that it can rotate, blackletter seems to be the more effective, so here's one that I was playing with
11.Oct.2003 9.59am
Tim, truly beautiful swashbuckling, mate.
Get a frame around it immediately!
here's where I was going with mine...
still a work in progress....
11.Oct.2003 8.41pm
Those are both great!
Tim, your ty/hy-ligature solution is very clever!
11.Oct.2003 11.57pm
Mark, "pretty absorbing" eh?
I think Tim and I are experiencing what you did
20-some years ago.
the Typophile ambigram was really bothering.
typo p hile
t=e
y=l
p=i
o=h
and flip the p.
blackletter and conventional, struck out.
I sketched out some cursive letters and
thought of suburban from emigre, with the
lowercase l and y being the same glyph flipped.
That made me decide that a script skeleton would work,
but I'd have to fudge a bit on the problematic h/o
combination...
the bottom one is a half-finished take on
word balloon, forum banter, etc.
Tim (or Mark), do either of you want to take this and do
some of your cool blackletter...while maintaining a script
skeleton...i don't know if it'd work.
Tim, I like your 'typography' as a late entry for the Tee contest
or an early favorite in the Typophile Tattoo contest.
bj
ps, this is not experimental!
:P
12.Oct.2003 12.54am
I have been struggling with typophile - at the moment I don't see an answer, especially the HO combination I think your script answer is close (as per John Langdon's City of Brotherly = Philadelphia) - I'll carry on fettling, "absorbing" doesn't really cover it though.
Tim
13.Oct.2003 10.08am
Here's an alternate strategy:
I intentionally put in breaks in the y/l in hopes that it would
make the o/h trick less obvious. (My theory is that it helps
to give the unambiguous characters a bit of ambiguity to
make the unavoidably ambiguous ones blend in better.)
13.Oct.2003 11.04am
Mark, i like where this solution is going,
especially the t/e...
the wide O seems to overpower...Typopoile?
not sure myself, but how would this geometric o/h fit in?
maybe the o is to y-like...
bj
13.Oct.2003 12.26pm
Kenn asked:
does the Langdon book have tips and tricks?
He has a chapter explaining the development of one of his
ambigrams,
13.Oct.2003 12.46pm
...Typopoile?
Well, you know, it was just off the top of my head. These thing tend to get a little hairy. :-)
I've got another idea I'll try to post later.
13.Oct.2003 5.50pm
How about this:
13.Oct.2003 6.09pm
Mark, very inspiring! Especially the swirly p doing double-duty stems.
it's just right as-is, imo, but the curious bones in my body
are forcing my fingers to type: What if it had a Suburban-style y-h?
aargh, sorry.
quoting from the Godfather,
"Just when I think I'm out, they keep pulling me back in."
bj
13.Oct.2003 6.37pm
And the winner of the typophile T contest is...
13.Oct.2003 6.53pm
Nah. To much like last year's. :-) Anyway, I'm one of the
judges this year. If Jared and Joe want to use it on the site,
it's okay with me, though.
Here's a loopier version:
13.Oct.2003 9.07pm
Mark, this is great stuff!
hhp
14.Oct.2003 2.20am
Mark, brilliant!
Rodolfo, thanks, I've ordered the book anyway...
14.Oct.2003 6.38am
Thanks!
I had the basic idea for the last two last week, but it was
coming out all ugly. I couldn't get the o-p-h to work.
Forgetting about it for a while helped.
14.Oct.2003 6.54am
If Jared & Joseph open up the option of voting for this as 'people's' choice, it will win hands down.
14.Oct.2003 7.11am
Far prefer the non loopy version, italicising it seems to add to the legibility.
The only way I could get past all the loops in the middle was this - still not a genuine solution as I cheated the e.
14.Oct.2003 7.45am
It's an interesting strategy to use all those swashes and
loops. They slip back and forth between being parts of
characters or decorative elements depending on how you
look at it. The tail on the y that becomes a dot on the i is
great.
14.Oct.2003 10.13am
Golden!
23.Oct.2003 1.58pm
:: kicks self ::
How did I miss this entire thread?!
23.Oct.2003 2.39pm
Because it initially just said HOLY SH*T instead of
something like KICK-A$$ AMBIGRAMS.
23.Oct.2003 2.40pm
Brilliant guys! This is really great stuff.
jared
23.Oct.2003 4.24pm
Wow, Mark's ambigramm is amazing. I did somthing similar for the tee-contest, but unfortunately not of that excellence.
23.Oct.2003 6.14pm
Brilliant, inspirational work in this thread.
23.Oct.2003 7.44pm
Martin,
That's pretty good! I haven't seen many ambigrams done
with an existing typeface (Poetica).
23.Oct.2003 11.34pm
I'll get my 'Wordplay' book within few days! Wohoo!
Can't wait...
26.Oct.2003 6.18pm
You might want to pick up Dan Drown's book Angels and Demon's.
That has Langdon ambigrams in it as well.
27.Oct.2003 1.50pm
How about these? The typography ambigram-tattoo.
27.Oct.2003 1.56pm
The typophile ambigram - rotated around the "op".
27.Oct.2003 1.56pm
The typophile ambigram - rotated around the "op".
30.Oct.2003 2.05pm
I'm sure I already told you but I absolutely love your work, Mark.
30.Oct.2003 2.10pm
And I, too, like Martin's ambigram t-shirt using Poetica. I like the controlled "misuse" of glyphs to represent other glyphs.
I've attached my own thoughtype 2002 logo, created using one of my friend Cyrus Highsmith (of Font Bureau fame) experimental typefaces (and the CIA compendium of Jens Gehlhaar for the subhead) because it's quite the opposite of an ambigram: it may not be really "read", not even in a mirror.
thoughtype.logo_02.pdf (22.0 k)
1.Nov.2003 12.34pm
This seemed like fun so I gave it a try, I have a lot of homework this weekend, so I couldn't give it too much of my time, but It's in a pretty decent state.
I'm a 2nd year design student, so crits are more then welcome.
1.Nov.2003 6.20pm
Nice work from the contributing artists here. I especially like Tim Daly
1.Nov.2003 6.21pm
Fixed the stress.
4.Nov.2003 2.42am
Thanks Bill,
Now all I need is to find a practical application for it.
T
9.Oct.2004 3.03am
HI guys
Just new to this forum and I really like the ambigrams that you made here.
How do you do that? do you use a certain program? How do you edit the fonts?
Is there a 'simple mirroring program'?
thnx
10.Oct.2004 2.09am
Well, I worked on paper to work out the rough ideas and then transferred it to Illustrator to draw and revise, drawing the first half and then rotating or reflecting it and altering it and finally join the two halves. I don't start off with a font just a calligraphic thought.
Tim
10.Oct.2004 3.08pm
thnx Tim
so you actually draw everything....
for example: the one you posted on october 11th.
how do you get it with all the long curls and stuff.
Really great.
Though it shouldn't be too hard to make a program that automatically mirrors it. So all you see will show immediately in mirror -> easy adjusting
I will try some things
Want to work out a nice one for my american football team 'Amsterdam Crusaders' or 'Crusaders'. For a t-shirt
and of course the name of every beautiful girl I meet ;-)
11.Oct.2004 6.09am
The long curls just developed themselves because I needed to make the descenders of the p separate when read upsidedown. I find it a lot quicker to draw them out on paper first and make amends as I'm going, plus I can turn the paper around faster than Illustrator
16.Oct.2004 6.44am
haha..
Hope it will impress the girls
I installed illustrator. tried working with it, but there are so many options that I find it quite difficult to get it the way I want.
Isn't there a short tutorial on how to adjust the fonts?
What is the font you are using? of a good font to start with?
This is my ambigram for the name
DANIELLE
17.Oct.2004 3.34am
That is a great start, works well and is legible (as
legible as this kind of thing gets). I would take this scan
into Illustrator and start drawing it up, the only comment
I would make is that the slopes on the n should be a
similar weight to the crossbars.
I understand about the confusion that Illustrator can
produce, but use will help. As for getting started in
Illustrator, Leslie Carbarga's The Logo, Font, and
Lettering Bible, (http://www.logofontandlettering.com/)
this book is a good place to start, although I would
recommend using layers
10.Dec.2004 12.11am
Hey ya'll, I just recently got super interested in ambigrams...check these out and let me know what you think:
4.Apr.2005 11.06am
I just started making ambigrams, and I wondered what you all think of my first one. It is one of my name: aafke. I'm Dutch, so I don't think you can read my name, but I hope you at least like the ambigram.
5.Apr.2005 3.49am
Hij doet het hoor! I think the first 'e' is too obvious, but your name is a hard one to do...
5.Apr.2005 4.48am
This makes a nice image, however, some suggestions to improve legibility if you add a spur to the bottom of the a, flip the f so that the serif overhangs to the right, and connect the leg of the k to the counter of the a and try aligning it with the baseline of the first a and last e, and lastly the centre of your background image has a circle which is distracting.
Tim
5.Apr.2005 4.19pm
.: comment removed by poster, Thanks :.
5.Apr.2005 4.33pm
.: comment removed by poster, Thanks :.
5.Apr.2005 4.33pm
Rocky I think this is fun. I do think you should add more space to the first downward stroke. Make it equal to the res of the strokes in the m.
5.Apr.2005 4.36pm
I meant the distance "between" the strokes.
17.Apr.2005 3.53pm
Micheal Young wrote:
"This seemed like fun so I gave it a try, I have a lot of homework this weekend, so I couldn't give it too much of my time, but It's in a pretty decent state."
Congratulations. Yours is the first that didn't look like "Typou Badly" to me. I was looking in google for ambigrams, and that's what I thought it said at first. Intrigued, I came here, and wow! Nice artwork, people! =D
26.Apr.2005 10.39am
I've been struggling with this one for a while. Any help is greatly appreciated.
I think this is more along the lines of what Mr. Langdon calls a "Symbiotogram". It's intended for the logo for an editorial piece called "Myriad" - which is about all "people".
6.May.2005 1.34pm
myoung’s ambigram is by far the most legible... nice work
8.May.2005 8.03pm
Inspired by Angels & Demons.
22.Jun.2005 2.45am
Hello, I was pleased to have found this forum of like minded people... here is an ambigram of HappyBirthday
... Peace
22.Jun.2005 2.48am
Love it
Tim
22.Jun.2005 9.12am
How do you insert an image so that it can be viewed on the forum... cheers?
22.Jun.2005 12.03pm
David, that’s one of the best -and most useful- I’ve ever seen.
hhp
22.Jun.2005 1.02pm
Thank you...
23.Jun.2005 12.51am
Since the redesign images cannot be inserted in any replies to posts, I believe/hope this will change as the Beta problems are ironed out.
Tim
23.Jun.2005 3.20am
Oh, hey, it’s the thread that originally led me to Typophile (via site referral logs). I’ve done quite a few since then.
Breck, here is a quick sketch of my solution, containing some aspects you might not have thought of.
23.Jun.2005 3.44am
Some quite impressive ambigrams you got there, Kevin..
( I particularly like ’Riegler’, ’Wonderland’ and ’312’.. Respect.. )
24.Jun.2005 3.28am
What do you think about the ’Illuminati’ ambigram in the Da Vinci Code? Do you think that the way Dan Brown has used the ambigram works well within the story?
It has been implied that the Illuminati were aware of ambigrams. How much truth do you believe there is in this?
There was a mystic called Abraham Abulafi (c.1240-1292), who used a method to combine letters, reversing and rolling them around to achieve a state of ’wisdom and knowledge’. I wonder if there is any evidence that secret societies used wordlplay.
24.Jun.2005 11.06am
Dan Brown, as much as I love how he has sent the masses to Google in search of ambigrams they can get tattooed, is not a historian. His approach to fiction is that if there is anything he personally does not know, he makes something up, even if a little research would tell him something different. It is safe to say that the reason ambigrams appear in the book is that John Langdon shares a name with Brown’s protagonist, Robert Langdon, and that brought them together.
But of course secret societies use wordplay. The “ICHTHUS” acronym comes from the time when Christianity was a secret society.
24.Jun.2005 11.30am
By wordplay I was referring to ambigrams, and the secret society the Illuminati... as Dan Brown claims that the ’Illuminati understood the symmetry of ambigrams’.
26.Jun.2005 5.10am
Here is a blog of some of my ambigrams
27.Jun.2005 5.03am
I thought that I’d register and post since I’m the ambigram artist of ambigram.net
Here is my best design: Jonathan.
Mark’s ambigram of the word “Ambigram” above is excellent - I’ve been wanting to draw an ambigram of this word for a while but have not found a pleasing solution yet. I’m very jealous!
26.Nov.2005 2.13pm
The Happy Birthday ambigram is great! And a lot of people making them for their girlfriends... I hope it starts a trend of giving them as gifts.
:-)
27.Nov.2005 7.10pm
I’ve just updated John Langdon’s site
with this new awesome Aerosmith
ambigram. Does anybody have the new book? Other gems in there as well.
27.Nov.2005 7.39pm
I’ve just updated John Langdon’s site
with this new awesome Aerosmith
ambigram. Does anybody have the new book? Other gems in there as well.
I’m surprised that this was not up on his site sooner...as I saw it displayed in the annual ANNX design competition at Drexel spraypainted onto the floor. This is an excellent piece, too bad it was never really used! (according to John) I should be getting the book for xmas, it’s on my wishlist anyways!
1.Dec.2005 5.47pm
Ah, You’re a Dragon! What year? Representing class of ’04. When I first arrived, the CoMad office had a “media arts” ambigram on the floor under the entrance. Is that still around anywhere?
1.Dec.2005 5.50pm
I’m class of ’07. I haven’t seen that around, it’s probably gone. I work with John on his comissioned ambigrams since he’s so busy, he sends me sketches and I digitze/refine them if need be. It’s neat seeing what he’s doing.
1.Dec.2005 7.00pm
That’s funny... I guess you replaced me when I started the website. Get at me when you need a coOp. We need more type-conscious people at my place.
1.Dec.2005 7.28pm
Get at me when you need a coOp. We need more type-conscious people at my place.
I’m actually working at RCA Records in NYC as we speak (well not this minute but I’m already on my co-op cycle.) Where are you working? I’m always interested in contacts for after school.
2.Dec.2005 10.36pm
RCA Records sounds fun...I’m at TMX Communications in Conshohocken. Doing interactive work, but moving towards print advertising.
5.Dec.2005 9.57am
Something more interesting/useful than an
ambigram can be seen in the last image here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4499406.stm
It doesn’t seem really well executed though.
hhp
5.Dec.2005 4.23pm
hrant: Langdon actually does Symbiotagrams that are along that idea...where the word is flipped and it becomes the opposite. True/False etc. I’ve done a black/white one but it was a little iffy at one point so i never ’finished’ it..just have the sketch in my sketch book.
5.Dec.2005 5.29pm
> Langdon actually does Symbiotagrams
Good to know. Even better would be if
he found a nicer term for the things. :-)
BTW, I don’t see why the two should
be opposite; anything that says some-
thing else when flipped is already cool.
hhp
5.Dec.2005 5.39pm
He’s got all sorts of examples of ’irregular’ ambigrams, his Philosophy ambigram turns upside down and says Art & Science, he’s done figure/ground relationships etc....look here for a few examples: http://johnlangdon.net/asymmetrical.html I think he enjoys playing with the words that the names don’t really matter as much as the beauty of the final product. :-)
13.Dec.2005 10.41am
Wow, now that’s my kind of stuff! Very nice - thanks for pointing that out.
hhp
13.Dec.2005 11.13am
No problem!
23.May.2007 8.19pm
An embarrassment of bitches.
hhp
23.May.2007 8.56pm
Oh, you’re just jealous.