1. Miracle Whip? While the M/W is an obvious ambigram, I never thought I would see this on a container of mayonnaise from Kraft! My girlfriend picked this out of a crowded store shelf in a blink of an eye, and I cannot believe I didn’t see it first!

2. The Sun microsystems logo has been around for 28 years before it was acquired by Oracle in 2010. While the company itself doesn’t technically exist anymore, the ambigram logo survives!

3. Say what you while about Hyundai quality, but at least part of their logo is an ambigram!

4. Xpedx is a simple yet effective ambigram, and in my mind embodies what a corporate ambigram should be: readable, legible, and aesthetically suited for the business.

If any of our readers see ambigrams in the real world, take a photo and send me an email, telling me where you saw the ambigram & what you think of it. We might just feature it in the next “Real World Ambigrams.”

This has the potential to be the most international challenge yet! Keeping this in mind, the staff at Ambigram.com would like to ask all the artists to stick to several ‘rules’…

1. Please create your ambigram in English We love seeing ambigrams in different languages, however, without knowing the language, it will be difficult to judge the the work. BUT…if you would like to create an ambigram of your chosen city in the native language, send it to us, and we will try to feature it when we announce the winner of this challenge.
2. Please stick to relatively major cities Here at Ambigram.com, we pride ourselves on our knowledge of world geography. However, we might not know the name of some small town or village in your country…which, once again, would make judging somewhat difficult.

Other then the above, there are no other rules. Remember to have fun with this challenge, and we offer the following hint: While you’re asked to design the ambigram in English, think about using color/symbols that allude to your culture.

Deadline

All artwork will need to be submitted by midnight on June 5th, 2010 to qualify. Email your designs to challenge@ambigram.com . The contest is open to everyone, whether or not you have participated in the past, so give it a shot.

The results will be published on June 19th, 2010, and the next challenge will be announced at that time.

Please be sure to include a web site URL that we can link to if your design makes it into the top 5 list.

So…good luck and have fun! Let’s make this the best Ambigram Challenge yet!

Blazing poster. Used with permission of the artist.

Ambigram.com: Sebastian, thank you for speaking with us. First, let’s get the expected question out of the way. How long have you known about ambigrams, and when did you first become interested in them?

Sebastian Lester: I first became aware of ambigrams in the early 90′s when I was in the first year of my graphic design degree. For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in optical illusions and clever visual ideas with letterforms though. In 1992 I designed a logo for a proposed art college magazine called ‘Edge’. It wasn’t an ambigram but all the letters were the same shape rotated and flipped to create the word. In 1992 I also designed a somewhat lunatic font called ‘recycle’ made out of five characters that you rotated, scaled and flipped to create an entire lower case alphabet. That was the theory anyway. Making ambigrams was a natural progression from these kind of experiments.

Edge magazine logo. Used with permission of the artist.

Recycle typeface. Used with permission of the artist.

Ambigram.com: Is ‘Blazing’ your first ambigram design? If it’s not your first, what was your first ambigram?

SL: The first decent ambigram I drew was ‘Virtual Reality’ in 1993 whilst at art college. I liked the fact that the ambigram approach worked well conceptually with the idea of virtual reality and that the letterforms have a suitably futuristic style to them.

Virtual Reality ambigram. Used with permission of the artist.

Ambigram.com: When designing your ‘Blazing’ limited edition art print, what was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome? Was it creating ambigrams out of all the words, maintaining a consistent style, or another difficulty you’d like to mention?

Blazing poster sketches. Used with permission of the artist.

SL: The aim was always to create something that was as attractive as any other limited edition print I’d created before, but also happened to be a successful ambigram. So working with those constraints was difficult and I tried various approaches before settling on this treatment. I’ve written a short article here about the print for anyone who is interested.

Blazing poster close-ups. Used with permission of the artist.

Ambigram.com: Do you think your background as a type designer and illustrator helped when designing the ‘Blazing’ poster?

SL: Definitely. I’m well versed in creating consistency in shapes and working experimentally in a variety of lettering styles. A lot of the qualities you need as a type designer are useful for creating ambigrams. In both disciplines you have to be creative, think laterally, have a forensic approach to detail, and stay focused and persistent for the best results.

Ambigram.com: What do you love the most about typography and letterforms?

SL: I don’t really know. Letterforms just seem to make more sense to me than anything else I know. I find them endlessly stimulating and fascinating. The Latin alphabet is one of our most beautiful and profound creations. I feel incredibly lucky I’ve found something I love as much as I do that I can actually make a living from. And what’s not to love about ambigrams? The best ambigrams aren’t just clever. They have a magical, almost transcendent, quality about them.

Ambigram.com: If someone wants to incorporate custom hand-lettered typography into their work, what is a good starting point?

SL: Just work loosely and freely with your lines to start with. Read about type and lettering history. Be inspired by other artists and designers, but find your own voice. Just have fun. If you persist, and you’re having fun in the process, it will become apparent in your work.

Ambigram.com: What is your personal creative process, and where do you draw your inspiration from?

SL: I always try and research a subject or particular lettering style as much as possible before I start a project. I always start with a pencil and paper, rather than a computer, as it’s the easiest way to get a lot of ideas down fast. I brainstorm words and ideas and shapes, not just letterforms. It’s important to be totally unselfconscious about making marks on paper. I start with loose scribbles. I might take elements I like from six different scribbles and make a more resolved drawing. Then I’ll scan it in and start refining it on a computer.

I draw my inspiration from everywhere. I find beauty, in all its manifestations, inspiring. I have an appreciation of the history of type, calligraphy and lettering that continues to grow. I collect old ephemera. Sometimes totally random things can fuel an idea. Sunshine, trees, medieval armour, a piece of product design or music. I’m always thinking about and absorbing the letterforms I see around me.

Ambigram.com: Who is your favorite ambigram designer?

SL: There are some incredible ambigram artists out there. I guess, to my mind, the best ambigrams combine ingenious legibility problem solving with great aesthetic beauty and I think John Langdon consistently achieves the best balance of those two components.

Ambigram.com: What is your favorite typeface? Why?

SL: Typefaces are tools so it depends what the typeface is to be used for. I have a favorite typeface for on screen legibility. I have a favorite typeface for setting books about the Renaissance in. I have a favorite typeface for setting magazines about monster trucks in. So unfortunately I’ve given the question far too much thought over the last fifteen years to have a simple answer.

Ambigram.com: What is your favorite ambigram?

SL: Sorry to choose one of my own pieces but I have to say ‘Blazing’. I just put so much into it and I’m so happy with it. It’s been quite an undertaking for me. It really pushed me creatively, it looks great in the flesh having been screen printed by hand to the highest standards, and it’s being sold by a gallery that sells the work of some very well known and successful artists. I feel very lucky to have been able to make it work.

Ambigram.com: Sebastian, the Blazing poster is beautiful, so you have the full right to toot your horn! Thank you for the insight into your daily work, life and inspiration.

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More of Sebastian Lester’s work can be found here: http://www.seblester.co.uk/

Ambigram.com: Tiffany, thank you for speaking with us. I will ask you the same question that I ask everyone, yet the answer never gets old, because each time the answer is slightly different:

How did you become interested in ambigrams?

Tiffany: Like most people, I was first introduced to ambigrams through John Langdon‘s work, but it was not from “Angels & Demons”. An online friend of mine was asked to be be in a book about words that are used as tattoos and posted a picture of the featured tattoo, Langdon’s mirror-image design of the word “Balance” (which she had permission to use). I immediately rushed over to Langdon’s site and was fascinated by the rotational designs. I’ve always been interested in calligraphy, word puzzles, optical illusions, and secret codes, so I had to try it out myself.

Ambigram.com: What was the very first ambigram you created? We’d love to see an example of it.

Tiffany: The first thing I tried was my last name, “Harvey”. Luckily, it was a very easy word to use! I drew it out on paper and then tried to draw it on the computer with my mouse, which is never pretty, but this was the basic design.

Once I started, I couldn’t stop!

Ambigram.com: You have a strong background in arts & crafts. How has that influenced your ambigram design?

Tiffany: I’ve always noticed a lot of cross over between different arts. When you are working on ceramics, you might use painting or carving techniques. I’ve used origami in resin pendants, stitched together paper on my sewing machine to create greeting cards, it all overlaps. In some ways, even the patchwork and the the embellishments I add to the ambigrams are similar. I was always trying to arrange the different fabrics in a way that looked random, but balanced, the same way I might layout stars and curls and dots around the letters of an ambigram. Developing an eye for details will carry through to any kind of artistic work.

Ambigram.com: Now, I have to ask this question. Aesthetically speaking, your ambigrams are spot on almost every single time. How do you create those perfectly matching curves, flourishes, and the rest of the intricate details that are such an integral part of your ambigram style?

Tiffany: I think repeating the same motif throughout the design can really help. If you look at fonts, you will see the same lines and curves appearing again and again throughout the letters. That is what creates the unifying style of the font. You can add a curl, or stick thin lines in among thick ones, but try to add them to the design more than once so that they become part of the overall style.

Ambigram.com: To follow up the previous question, how much of a factor does computer software play in your design? Do you create the complete ambigram using just paper/pencil  & then finalize it on the computer, or do you create very rough sketches and then develop the ambigram on the computer?

Tiffany: In the beginning, I did draw out the ambigrams on paper and scan them in to trace on the computer. I didn’t have a very good program to do this with, I was basically drawing with my mouse again, but I worked with large images so I could smooth things out easier.

Soon after that I was introduced to Inkscape, which is basically a free version of Illustrator, so that I could create vector images. Last year I got a Wacom graphics tablet, and have since then retired the scanner. I do still create a very rough sketch when a customer first contacts me, just to make sure ambigram is possible. I either create a more finished sketch on the computer, which is then re-worked in Inkscape, or use my rough sketch as a guide and lay out the ambigram from the font pieces of previous designs.

Here you can see it a little more step-by-step.

Ambigram.com: Are there any types of ambigrams you haven’t tried before that you’d like to design in the future? Have you ever designed any ambigrams in a different language?

Tiffany: I’m actually learning Japanese right now, and I’d love to create some bilingual ambigrams in Japanese and English.  These Chinese-English ambigrams are an inspiration.   I have created a few foreign ambigrams, though most of them use the Latin alphabet, so they are not very different from normal ambigrams in English, or some of the unusual names I get!

The most difficult foreign design I’ve done was a Russian ambigram in the Cyrillic alphabet, because I have no real concept of what makes the letters readable, or the different styles they can take on. I based my sketches on a cursive version of the alphabet I found online and sent the customer a few variations so she could pick what was most readable.

Ambigram.com: Are there any artists in the ambigram community that inspire you? Is there anyone whose work you follow really closely?

Tiffany: Of course, John Langdon was a big inspiration, and I remember looking at a lot of other work when I was first starting out. Now I think I tend to avoid others’ ambigrams, because I worry about being unintentionally inspired by other designs.

Ambigram.com: What is your own personal process for developing an ambigram, from start to finish? Where do you find your inspiration?

Tiffany: You can see a a lot of my step-by-step process in the above question about software. As far as inspiration, I think most of it comes from my customers. Sometimes the ambigrams are simply a matter of putting two names together with a font I’ve used many times before.

Other times the customers comes to me with layouts and embellishments I’ve never created before, a list of 10 fonts that I would not normally consider for an ambigram, or even ask for non-ambigram word art. The further I am drug out of my comfort zone, the more I start to worry, but the designs you struggle with are usually the ones you are most proud of in the end.

Ambigram.com: What advice would you give someone who is just starting to design their first ambigram?

Tiffany: Get a calligraphy book and practice writing a few of the alphabets. You don’t need to get really good at it (I certainly never was!), but seeing how the strokes repeat, and how the same letter can be completely different from one alphabet to the next, can really help you put together a readable design. Practice is also a big part of it.  The more ambigrams you draw, the more successful letter combinations you will discover and file away in your mind for future use.

Ask a friend if they can read your design, and what letters need more work. You already know what the word is supposed to be, so you need outside opinions. Also, small tweaks can really affect the readability of an ambigram, so don’t be afraid to play around with a hard-to-read letter.

Ambigram.com: One last question and then we’ll let you get back to work. If you had to pick one major corporation out there and redesign their logo as an ambigram, who would it be?

Tiffany: There have been several times when I have seen a logo and thought, “that would be pretty easy to turn into an ambigram”, and even considered making one up for fun and sending it to the company. Of course, now that you ask, I can’t remember any of them!

I think the most fun designs to create would be for a company that could really use the rotational aspect of the ambigram in their product, like on a watch or Ferris wheel, or across a tablecloth at a restaurant where customers could read the design from both sides.

Ambigram.com: Tiffany, thank you for the interview. We look forward to seeing more work from you!

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You can find more examples of Tiffany’s work at her web site at: http://wordillusion.com/

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!