Ambigrams are hot. They’ve been around forever as a curiosity but are catching on in logos and type now because…I don’t know – everything else has been done? Check out this gallery at wired.
A web-search on ambigrams will turn up a bunch of tattoo sites. Something about their symmetry and mystical puzzling quality makes people want to imprint it on themselves. Of course, does such a tattoo require you to prove to your audience that it’s the same upside-down? Make sure you can still do a head-stand before committing to that tattoo.
I wanted to try making one but was hoping to leverage some computer technique to flip it for me, so I wouldn’t have to do it all by hand. A search for ambigram software seems to pivot around one amazing proprietary tattoo software. Quite clever, but the cost and legal issues were daunting. Plus the gothic or script fonts that it builds on wouldn’t let me design a high-tech software logo. It’s clear after looking at just a handful of ambigrams that the medieval and scripting fonts let you add frills that your eye can choose to ignore or not. Kind of like captchas.
At any rate, I wanted to play with making them on my tablet PC, so I built on a some example code, and came up with a simple IE toy: AmbigramMaker.xaml. You can use your mouse but it’s better with a tablet pen since it lets you erase and apply pressure-sensitive marks. When you open it, you can only draw on the left-hand-side. But with a little practice and help from this tutorial you can make one. Don’t kill a lot of time with this – there’s no save feature. The following was created with a "print screen." If you’re interested in collaborating in improving this Silverlight-powered applet, please contact me. I have more ideas but little time.
So the following is a poor attempt to make an ambigram for the title of this blog. More time and more artistic skill does pay off.
