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Ambigrams
An ambigram
is a graphical figure that spells out a word not only in its
form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation
.
Ambigrams
recently gained popularity due to Dan Brown’s book, Angels &
Demons, in which ambigrams feature prominently. The title on the
cover of the book was an ambigram made by John Langdon and is
shown alongside. This is an example of a rotational ambigram,
since it reads the same when the image is rotated by 180o.
Other such ambigrams could read different words when rotated.
Ambigrams are
not new. Remember the pop band Abba ? Their logo was an ambigram
whose mirror image was the same as the word. Same for the
American Rock band NIИ.
Ambigrams
basically use the fact that the human brain identifies a letter
of the alphabet even if it is not properly framed. For example,
in the adjoining ambigram by John Langdon (Carpe Diem), ‘e’ in
the centre may not look like an ‘e’ at all, but since the phrase
is so common and the brain wants to make some sense of what is
written, it overlooks the ‘e’ that looks like a flipped ‘s’.
Similarly, something extra attached to the letter may be passed
off as ‘design’, like in the ‘m’ at the end. So while designing
an ambigram, the designer has some freedom to play with the
letters to achieve the desired effect.
While designing
a rotational ambigram, the basic aim is to design half the word,
which when turned over reads as the rest of the half. When I
begin making an ambigram, I write the word in small and capital
letters and see how they look like when turned upside down.
Sometimes there is no twisting of the letters required. For
e.g., an ‘s’ will still be an ‘s’ when rotated, an ‘h’ will
become a ‘y’, an ‘A’ almost becomes a ‘V’, a ‘u’ will turn into
an ‘n’ and so on. Other may require complicated designs and
adjustments.  Sometimes
it is better to combine parts of two adjoining letters that form
some other letter when turned upside down. There is no fixed way
of making an ambigram. One may come up with a variety of ways to
make an ambigram of the same word. For example, I made the
following two ambigrams for my name (Ankit):
Both these
designs mix parts of letters to give single letters.
In the first design I used both capital and small letters.
Observe how a part of ‘N’ forms a ‘K’ and part of it forms the ‘i’.
The lower part of the ‘i’ is made of two parts but it does not
look odd because the dot on the top is one single dot. Also the
‘t’ is divided so that the design looks uniform. Similarly, the
‘K’ has a small upper inclined stroke so that when it is turned
upside down, the ‘N’ does not look odd. The second design uses
only small letters. The ‘big’ brainwave in this design was the
design for ‘k’. A ‘k’ is quite difficult to handle in an
ambigram. Even the first design has an extra stroke in the ‘N’
due to the ‘k’. Of course nobody makes an ‘i’ quite like the ‘i’
in the second design, but well, it is an ambigram.
If you want to
make an ambigram, start by making one on a piece of paper. Do
not try to copy someone else’s style. Play with the letters. But
in the end, each letter should be recognizable and the word
should be readable, not merely decipherable.
I generally
design the ambigrams on paper first, then make them on the
computer using MS Paint. Finally I use Photoshop to add some
effects to the ambigram. For example in the adjoining ambigram (Vidit),
I made the outline of the letters using Paint and then added
colours in Photoshop.
- Ankit Dewan
4th Year,
Environmental Engineering |
