Daniel Dostal
http://daneel75.wordpress.com/

Image 02, Daniel Dostal

Image 03, Daniel Dostal

Image 05, Daniel Dostal

Image 07 & 08, Daniel Dostal

At first when I saw the word Gran Turismo I thought it would be very difficult to be two words. I started as I always do, writing the words, but do not use black ballpoint pen, there sensed that the reversal of words possible. The ‘G’ and ‘O’ are familiar, so the ‘m’ may contain ‘ra’ in the same way that the ‘No’ to ‘is’, then I did the sketch shown below.

Developmental sketches. John Moore.

To determine a level of style prior to the computer I did sketches of some letters pairings. From there I went straight to do digital. To me it is a waste of time to complete a scketch of something that is easier to compose on the computer.

Detailed ambigram sketches. John Moore.

Final GranTurismo ambigram. John Moore.

Thank you to Daniel and John for participating in the second round of Quick Draw!  The next pair has been selected and they will be notified of their ambigram within a few days. Until then, keep ambigramming! And as always, if you want to participate in a future round of Quick Draw, email nikita@ambigram.com with the subject line “I want to Quick Draw!”

Clayton Mabey
http://www.customambigrams.com

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Daan Juttmann
http://dahtamnay.blogspot.com/

First I noticed that there was a good chance to solve the ambigram with either lower case letters or capitals. The choice between these two options was the first crucial step in shaping the ambigram. Either option was going to have its own challenges. However, I felt that an upper case version gave me a bit more flexibility, so that is what I settled with.

The next more detailed sketches were done on grid paper for greater precision. Here I was also able to develop a more consistent style that would fit the entire ambigram. Since I didn’t want the lettering to appear too rigid, I decided to go with a slanted style with some slightly curled details. The italics also helped hiding an otherwise oddly backwards slanted A.

The finalizing work on the computer was all done with Inkscape. Although the sketches were often used as a one-to-one reference, I did make some final changes. For example, the frame around the ambigram was added during this phase. I didn’t feel the need to go overboard with fancy effects, since the typography in itself looked interesting enough. Hence the simple monochrome rendering.

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A big thank you to both Clayton and Daan for participating in the first round. The ambgirammists for Round 2 will be emailed shortly! If you would like to be considered for a future Quick Draw, email nikita@ambigram.com with the subject line “I want to Quick Draw!”

The ‘Art and Artist‘ ACAC challenge submissions exhibited a shocking level of creativity and imagination! With the requirements of the challenge making it a very difficult one, we received some absolutely amazing ambigrams.  It really is phenomenal what the human mind can do if you challenge it and push it outside of its comfort zone.

The Results

[NOTE: All designs are copyrighted by the respective artists. We have permission to post them here, but you must get permission from the artist for any other use of their design, or to post them elsewhere.]

1. Bjorn Wichmann - http://www.b-wichmann.de/

Comment 1: Congratulations, Bjorn!  This is so cool on so many levels.  It’s a rotational ambigram.  It’s a 3D ambigram.  AND it’s an ambigram that looks like something that MC Escher himself might have created if he were participating in our challenges here!  This is a wonderful tribute to man that we all hold in high regard, and for your efforts, you receive OUR top honor this month!  Nice work.

Comment 2: Bjorn, absolutely beautiful work! I am certain that Maurits Cornelis himself would be proud of the homage to him as an artist, as well as the accurate reflection of his ‘signature’ as an artist. A worthy tribute and a worthy first place finish.

Note: It has come to the attention of the judges that this ambigram may not have been created specifically for this challenge.  Since this is a friendly competition, we are not going to re-rank the designs, but we did want to make a note that this design appears to have been created prior to this challenge.

2. Johan Skylling

Comment 2: Shrinking this design down to fit into the article space here doesn’t do it justice.  This gem really needs to be seen at full resolution (go ahead and click it to check it out).  As above, this is an awesome tribute to a very creative man, and done in his signature style (if you’re not familiar with his work, click here.)  There was only a very slight compromise with the initial H of the ambigram missing a stem that put a small dent in the armor (so to speak), but the design work is incredible.  Congratulations on another great piece, Johan!

Comment 2: Amazing detail and another wonderful ambigram design! I’m not going to make any armor jokes like the previous comment, but I will say that this ambigram is almost bulletproof! Once again, the detail here is amazing and goes to show that a beautiful ambigram can be as simple as black/white lettering or one as complex as the one you’ve created. Great job!

3.  Ryan McCourt

Comment 1: Since the beginning of these contests, we’ve had submissions of rotational ambigrams.  We’ve had mirror ambigrams.  We’ve had vertical ambigrams.  We’ve had multilingual ambigrams.  We’ve even had hand-drawn ambigrams and 3D ambigrams (see above).  However, we’ve never seen a “performance art” ambigram before!

Ryan McCourt took the “Art and Artists” concept to a whole new level, not only attempting to replicate the artists style in his piece, but the artist’s actual techniques!  Jackson Pollock did a portion of his paintings using a “paint pouring” technique, and Ryan created a Pollock-like painting, using Pollock’s technique, forming an ambigram of Pollock’s name!  We loved this idea, and take our hats off to Ryan’s incredible dedication to accuracy in his submission.  As a side-note, we would have loved to have received a photo of the finished piece as part of the submission!

Comment 2: This is one of the most unique entries we have ever received. As the judge above mentioned, it would be great to see photos of the ambigram ‘performance’ in progress. This entry also shows that the ambigram realm isn’t always limited to pencil, paper, and the computer. Great entry Ryan, and welcome to the Ambigram Challenges!

Note: Our mistake.  This is actually Jackson Pollock, with the ambigram photoshopped into place, and not Ryan McCourt “pouring” his ambigram in paint.  It’s still quite a creative “background” for this piece.  See comments below for details.

4. Daniel Dostal – http://daneel75.wordpress.com/

Comment 1: This is another design that really needs to be seen at full resolution to be appreciated.  Daniel creates a superb ambigram (possibly the best typographical design in this challenge) of artist Albrecht Durer (if you are not familiar with his work, click here).  Unfortunately, it was Durer’s own wood-cut style that makes Daniel’s finished design somewhat difficult to see.

Still, if you take the time to follow the design, you will see what a beautiful ambigram this is, and how very true it is to the artist’s vision.  If a coffee table book is ever published with Albrecht Durer’s artwork, this would make an amazing front cover.  Congratulations on making it into the “Top Five” list (again) Daniel!

Comment 2: Great job on this ambigram Daniel! One of your unique traits is the ability to weave different letterforms together, yet make them seem like they are one letter and were created that way from the start. That is true for this ambigram as well. I also love the consistent feel of the whole piece, from the ambigram itself, to the background texture and the treatment of Durer’s mark. Nice job!

5. Nabil Harb – http://www.flickr.com/photos/wortgewandt13

Comment 1: Nabil created this fascinating piece that says “Jugendstil” (an art period like Art Nouveau) in the style of the period.  Although the extra flourishes make it difficult to read, in the context of this contest, the treatments make perfect sense, and make this a great ambigram that IS what is SAYS.  Nice work, Nabil!

Comment 2: A nice reflection of the Jugendstil period, and aside from some minor legibility issues, it’s a great representation of that art period. Very nice entry Nabil!

We received so many great submissions for this challenge, that we couldn’t just list the top five.  Below are examples of other submissions that were received for this challenge. There is still a great concept behind each of these designs, and the artists who created these pieces deserve to have them shown as much as you deserve to see them.

Michael Irving – Da Vinci

Ryan McCourt – Caro

Diego Colombo – Dante Alighieri

Alessandro Pocaterra – Campbell Soup / Andy Warhol

Daan Juttman – Art Nouveau

Clayton Mabey – Metamorphose (MC. Escher)

Stergioudis Vasileios – Mozart (drawn using musical notes)

Ian Sharp – Cubism

As a side note, we thought that we had received an excellent “Dali” submission, but when it came time to do the judging, there was no such entry in our in-box.  If you submitted a “Dali” ambigram, please re-send it to us.

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A big thank you to all the talented artists that submitted their work for this challenge! The next challenge will be posted shortly. Keep an eye out for it…you’ll find that it’s the right season for this type of challenge!

I contacted the owner of the blog, and they pointed me in the direction the artist Papper & Penna. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the creation process for the Ektopia logo.  Read on!

1. What type of a blog is Ektopia, and why did you think an ambigram logo was the perfect solution?

Used with permission from Ektopia and Papper & Penna

Ektopia blog is about creative art. The logo wasn’t a commission design. Me and Jay (Ektopia) are friends on “Flickr” and I follow his photostream. In his gallery I saw an attempt of his doing an “reflection” ambigram (see below).  He explained how he needed a new logo for his blog “Ektopia” and that he really wanted it to be an ambigram but had some struggles and was reaching out for ideas.

As soon as i laid my eyes on his drawing I got inspired and thought of how I could improve his design and make the letters work better with each other.  I’ve been drawing letters my whole life but I became really passionate when I discovered graffiti. As a graffiti writer I always aimed for symmetry in my letters. The thing about graffiti is that it’s often meant to be wild and hard to read. But an ambigram is no good in my opinion if it is not clearly legible. I hate ambigrams that look forced into symmetry.

After some doodling pen on paper I soon discovered that the letter combination “ektopia” would work better as a rotational ambigram and not reflectional. Its a fun challenge sketching up letters one by one that should work as other letters up side down. I constantly rotated my paper and it must have been a funny sight if you didn’t know what I was up to.

2. What and/or who was your inspiration for the ambigram mark?

Jay’s sketch.

Used with permission from Ektopia and Papper & Penna

3. The Ektopia ambigram has a very distinct aesthetic to it: the blackletter/gothic look is a fairly common trend in ambigram design. Was that the initial look you were going for, or did you attempt other styles as well?

I think the main reason that the “gothic” look is common among ambigram designs is that the letters often are symmetrical as they are. Gothic and blackletters have very straight-vertical lines which is appreciated when you draw ambigrams. They are also decorative and you can hide or reveal letter-parts among “ornaments”. I don´t know if that answered your question but yeah I wanted the logo to be artsy/aesthetic, but a script font could have worked as well. The important thing is how you alter it.

4. Do you think the mark accurately represents Ektopia and its purpose?

Yeah, Ektopia’s blog is about more than just art and my logo-design is more than just a logo.

5. What was the most challenging aspect of the design & development process of the ambigram mark?

An ambigram is always challenging if the word is not an palindrome obviously. Haha. But if you want me to pin point out a specific detail I guess it was making the “kt” look like a “p” upside down.

Used with permission from Ektopia and Papper & Penna

6. Are there any ambigram artists that you personally admire?

I honestly don’t know any names but a personal favorite is the logo for “Blacksmith management”. It looks so obvious and natural, not forced into an ambigram.  (Take a look at the Blacksmith ambigram here.)

7. What is your background? Are you a designer, fine artist, or a hybrid of the two? Or, is there anything else in the mix that inspires your design and art?

I am a freelance logo designer. Together with a friend I have “Papper och Penna”. I find inspiration in everything from my 3 year old sons drawings to food labels and old signs.

Much thanks to both Papper & Penna and the Ektopia blog for providing the material for this article.

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Here is the link to the Ektopia blog
Ektopia Blog http://www.ektopia.co.uk/ektopia/

Here is the Flickr photo-stream for Papper & Penna. Take a look at some of his wonderful typographic work!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/papperochpenna

The inspiration for an ambigram can come from almost anywhere. It could be a commissioned piece, a gift for a friend, or a ‘just because’ in-the-spur-of-the-moment desire to create something unique and unusual. But, even if the inspiration is instantaneous, you still have to go through the analysis & determine whether your chosen word will make a successful ambigram or not.

In this example, the song ‘Out Of My Mind’ by John Mayer was on the radio. I have always been a fan of blues, and I like Mayer’s music because he can switch seamlessly between the mainstream artist and a classic blues man, whose guitar-playing abilities rival those of Hendrix and SRV. While listening to the song, I wrote down the name of the song and artist, almost mechanically, in my sketchbook.

(click the image to see a larger preview)

Of course, my next thought was ‘Oh!Ambigram!’ since I already had my sketchbook open and had pencil ready in hand. First, I wrote down the words ‘john mayer’ in lowercase, lowercase cursive, and uppercase.

(click the image to see a larger preview)

Usually, I start off with writing the future ambigram in uppercase, but in this case, I decided to write it down in several different cases. At first, I decided to work with all uppercase letters. Uppercase letters are much easier to draw, read, and work with; they have much fewer tails, serifs, ears, and other typographic structural elements that are ubiquitous amongst lowercase letters.

After writing down the words ‘john mayer’ in all uppercase, I wrote it upside down to see how the letters lined up, and then began a more in-depth analysis.

(click the image to see a larger preview)

After looking at it for a few minutes, I realized that my initial assumption that uppercase would be easier to work with was erroneous. When I realized that I also came to a few other conclusions:

- After I decided to use very simplified lowercase letters, I realized that a 1-to-1 ratio would work perfectly for this ambigram.

- I was lucky enough to have a ‘central’ letter, the M, which has an equal number of characters on each side; in addition, the M was very easy to modify to read the same way upside down.

- The words ‘john mayer’ was as close to a natural ambigram as I could come; I had to make but a few slight changes to make it both readable & legible.

In the previous image, you saw a few quick sketches of each letter pair to see how they would look underneath each other. Here is a more finalized sketch:

(click the image to see a larger preview)

After I finished the first complete sketch, I also realized that this would be a perfect opportunity to use an actual typeface to finish the ambigram. Usually, I steer away from using already designed typefaces and always hand-draw the final diagram, then trace it in the computer. However, for this ambigram, I wanted to portray the effortless sound and classy style of John Mayer’s music. I didn’t want a heavy or even a regular typeface weight for this ambigram. So in the end, I decided to go with the tried and true, overused & abused, perfect and boring: I chose Helvetica Light as my typeface weight. After some very minor adjustments, this was the final solution.

(click the image to see a larger preview)

End of process!

Natural ambigrams are ones that don’t require any modifications. Flip them, mirror them, reflect them, and you get the same word, and very rarely, you get a different word. In the world of ambigrams, a rotational ambigram (one that depicts the same word when rotated 180 degrees) is the most common one, followed by some reflective ambigrams, and very rarely, if ever, a symbiotogram.

Let’s take a look at a few examples, shall we?

MOM

This is one of the few natural ambigrams that works as a reflective ambigram in two different ways, as well as a symbiotogram.

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

Mirror (a rare case where the mirrored word is a symbiotogram.)

suns – rotational

This ambigram is pretty self explanatory.

How about a bonus? Eliminate one vertical stroke of the U/N, add a dot, and you have a SINS ambigram!

sos – rotational

When you need to be saved, what better to use then a graphic that can be read the same way in two different directions?

pod – rotational

bid – reflective

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

bud

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

GOD

This ambigram might require some slight modification depending on how you write it, but it is pretty straight forward as well.

But wait…what’s this? Let’s take the G, mirror it, and…now we have a reflective ambigram from the same word!

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

noon

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

anna

Reflection v1

Reflection v2

Note that each one of these ambigrams is sketched on paper in a slightly different aesthetic, then simply held up against a mirror and photographed. I’m no David Copperfield, so these ‘illusions’ are as real as can be!

Now, you may be asking yourself, what good is studying, drawing and redrawing natural ambigrams?

There are several parts to that answer. The first part is blatantly obvious: you do not have to worry about legibility, since it’s already a natural ambigram!! This allows you to focus on aesthetics; thus you can give your ambigram almost any look & feel that you want, without reducing legibility and/or readability. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, as you can ‘over-stylize’ even the most natural ambigram so that it will be hard to read and understand.

The second part of the answer is simple: you are developing your hand and eye ability to recognize ambigram potential. We have to practice our skills; whether you’re an athlete, musician, poet, writer, designer, etc. you still have to work on honing your abilities. Why should ambigram design be any different? Once you train your eye to recognize and your hand to draw (and stylize) natural ambigrams, you can switch to more complex words and attempt to turn them into ambigrams.

THE AMBIGRAM CHALLENGE

Here is my challenge to everyone: take one of the natural ambigrams you’ve read about in this article, or find one that I haven’t mentioned. Attempt to stylize each one at least 3 to 4 different times so that each version exudes a different style. Do this by hand, not on the computer!! Then scan/photograph the sketches, email them to nikita@ambigram.com and we’ll post them along with a write-up and analysis in one of the future columns.

Happy ambigramming!

As you can see, the title is set in a Blackletter-style Cyrillic typeface, which really has a great aesthetic connection to the dark plot and characters of the book. My first thought was “can I make an ambigram out of the title?”  After asking myself that question, I had two immediate goals in mind: analyze the current title to see if it would indeed make a successful ambigram, and if it was possible, to keep the same ‘dark and sinister’ look.

Analysis

At first what I did was quickly redraw the book title by hand, just to see what my hand does. I know that might sound strange to someone, but think of how you touch clothing in a store to feel the texture of the cloth or you inhale a fragrance to see how it will make you feel. This is no different! Drawing out a typeface allows you to understand it better and to experience firsthand (pun fully intended!) the transition from character to character.

After redrawing it (1), I realized that each character is made up of the same basic shape, some wider characters requiring two of the shapes (2). When I saw how basic the shape is, I realized that it was almost perfectly balanced, which I quickly determined by drawing a rough outline around the would-be word (3). After a few more rough sketches (which I am not including here because they are too rough), I switched to the only problem in the word, which was the letter ‘y.’ Why is it a problem you ask? Well it’s all about that pesky descender of the ‘y’, the only non-symmetrical part in the whole word. As I experimented with three or four various shapes (4) to make the ‘y’ that is read the same way after the word is turned, I became frustrated with the lack of symmetry and decided to switch to the computer to work out the basic vector shapes for each letter and then experiment with the ‘y.’

After finalizing the basic shapes for the narrow (5) and wide (6) characters, I decided to develop those few characters that, in my analysis, proved that they would be perfectly symmetrical.

As you can see above, perfect symmetry! Not a bad first attempt, but the biggest problem was still the ‘y.’ Since I wanted to keep the letters proportionate and consistent, I decided to crop the vertical center part of the first letter and use it as the descender of the ‘y.’ I noted that the negative space between the ‘a’ and the ‘c’ characters (refer to the image below), when combined with the descender, almost formed two perfect ‘y’ letters.

Ok, that looks like a very rough ‘y’, but let’s try it!

Not bad right? Well the symmetry was definitely there, but something bothered me about the way the ‘a’, ‘y’ and ‘c’ were joined together and that the ‘y’ was more implied then strictly defined. So I decided to try to fix that issue.

Much better! But, now the ‘y’ bothered me because it did not look like a ‘y’ but more like a character that would look more at home on the Rosetta stone then in my ambigram! It also looked very separated from the rest of the word and seemed to fill the space rather then complement it. What to do…what to do…what to do…

The solution proved to be very simple. By simple extending the tail of the ‘a’ and the ‘c’, the connection helped define the ‘y’ better and gave the ‘a’ and the ‘c’ better recognition.

And to compare the final result to the original….

Voila! A Cyrillic ambigram!

I would like to focus on these two types of ambigrams:

Rotational – reads the same way when rotated 180º degrees. Certain variations of this exist; for example, one word can be read one way, and when you rotate the word 45 degrees or 90 degrees, you read a completely different word.

Symbiotogram – an ambigram that depicts a different word when rotated 180º degrees.

As I mentioned earlier, in an ideal ambigram (rotational or symbiotogram), there is the same number of letters in both words, all the letters will match up well and you can keep the ratio of letter 1-to-1. So, for what reasons would you want to alter the ratio and combine two (or more) letters?

In a rotational ambigram, just because there is the same number of characters in either direction, does not mean that the 1-to-1 ratio is optimal for legibility & readability. Combining several characters in one direction, while reading them as one character in another direction, could improve the legibility of the ambigram and make life a bit easier for the artist.

The key to creating a successful 2-to-1 ratio is to explore multiple variations to determine which character(s) will work better for which ratio. Sometimes two characters will blend together seamlessly in one direction while forming a perfectly legible single character in another direction. Let me illustrate this point by using an ambigram which utilizes this approach.

For this particular ambigram, I selected the names of my two friends who recently became engaged. Initially, I set the words in Myriad to look for matching stems, crossbars, curves and strokes. Almost immediately, I noted that the ‘u’ would be a problem when matched up to the upside-down ‘i’. The next thought was about how well the verticals in the ‘u’ matched up to both the ‘l’ and the ‘i’. There was my first 2-to-1 match-up!

Ok, so the u/li are matched up well. My eyes were then drawn to the central character of the ambigram, the ‘h.’ Granted I set the word using a lowercase ‘h’, but decided to use an uppercase ‘H’ instead, because that is a natural match to itself upside down. I also noticed how the ‘&’ character matched the curves of the ‘s’ really closely. I knew that I had that problem solved as well and that the s/& would be a good match for each other.

The only letters remaining were the ro/a combination. At this point, there was no choice but to make it a 2-to-1 ratio because I cornered myself by matching up the u/li. The shapes of the ‘o’ and ‘a’ are pretty similar to each other. Now you may think that I need contacts because those letters have nothing in common except for being vowels.

Here, I would like to make a very important point: to determine whether or not a 2-to-1 (or more) ratio will be successful, you need to see it in context of the full word and not just by itself on a piece of paper. Other than some basic curvatures, those two characters are different. Each has a different personality, a different signature if you will. But, combine those two letters, place them in the context in which they would be seen, and your perception of those characters will change. The proper context will not only help you understand whether the ratio is successful or not but will also help you perceive the word, as well as determine the legibility & readability.

At this point, the ‘r’ looked like the odd letter out. There did not seem to be any room for it. But since I had the other letters figured out so well (at least for the time being) I thought that the ‘r’ would fit in later. And…

…it did! If you look at the right side of the above ambigram, the way the ‘r’ merges with the ‘a’ and ‘l’ makes it look like an exaggerated spur of the lowercase ‘a.’ On the opposite side, the merger of the ‘l’ and the ‘r’, along with the slight separation at the terminal of the ‘r’ (see above image), helps define the r/o combination while upside down, it appears as an exaggerated ‘a.’

And, the final ambigram:

In the final version, I ended up using two 2-to-1 ratios; they ended up following each other, and when both of them were combined, they helped make certain letters more prominent in either direction, as well as help disguise other letters. As you can see, 1-to-1 is not always the optimal solution. Even if a word matches up well utilizing 1-to-1 ratios, try to experiment with different ratios; it will train your eye & your hand, as well as your ability to recognize certain character transitions and potential for unique & unusual combinations.