From now on, we will require that any submissions for the ACAC are created for that specific theme. Of course, there is no exact way to test it, so we will depend on the participants’ honor system. This will be the requirement for most, if not all, of future ACACs and will be specified in the rules for each individual challenge.

Finally, the ACAC is still relatively new. As it continues to develop, we will continue to refine all of its aspects, from judging to posting work to commenting on the work. The feedback from everyone has been incredibly helpful, and hopefully it will continue.

Thanks everyone!

I regret having created the impression that I really want to “win.” (see point #1, above). I would like to foster dialog and cooperation among us all, for the sake of improving the overall state of the ambigram world, and the quality of the ambigrams we’re al creating.

With best regards to all,
John

No no. I didn’t take the idea from your comment about coherence. I was simply saying that Mr. Langdon might be a good judge in the competitions since he is a professional and considered as one of the inventors of ambigrams. But I guess you could easily brush off a 14-year old’s opinion.

I don’t think you were rude. I actually found some of your suggestions nice especially the one where you suggested that ordinary people be judges of an ambigram’s readability.

I was not saying that he could be a judge.
I was so critical against his design that I added: I’m criticizing because you are so good. You are subject to judgement more than a hobbist ambigrammist BECAUSE you are a professional among us. While our design glitch can be forgiven in name of our naivete, the very same glitch from you is not so acceptable.
I was referring to his use of a different font for the word “love” in the middle of the sentence. The choice of a Fraktur text (love) inside a Handwriting font (the rest of the sentence) is evidently an incoherence, as this “love” was already prepared and just cut-and-pasted into the final ambigram.

Rereading my posts it looks I’m rude and know-it-all. Sorry.
It isn’t because Italy was shot out the football World championship. I couldn’t care less and I don’t understand how grownup adults can run around in underpants kicking an innocent ball. I don’t even have a television to watch the games at home.
The probable reason of my “bitterness” is called Emily: she’s 17 months old and while she is the best ambigram I made, she doesn’t let me sleep enough. It would be better to stop writing posts at 1 in the night and count till 10000 before pressing “Submit”.

Thank you for the answers, it’s interesting to know other people’s ideas.
Alessandro, Italy

ps: …., 9997, 9998, 9999, 10000. Submit

I do like the idea of requiring original work for the ACAC. Although I wouldn’t directly oppose submitting previous works, it feels more like a challenge if you have to make a new ambigram for the occasion. After all it’s supposed to be a challenge, not?

This of course could partly be enforced by setting fixed words for the challenge, like the NAC often did. Chances that you have an ambigram ready for that particular word are minimal. Also, I agree that it is nice to see different solutions to the same word. It may even be easier to judge the entries fairly this way. However to entirely exclude theme based challenges seems a bit excessive. Working from a theme has some unique challenges of its own. I’d suggest a healthy mix between the two kinds of challenges.

On to the judging criteria:

– Readability. This is in my opinion too one of the most important aspects of an ambigram. Getting unbiased views on this might be tricky though. You suggested to ask 10 random strangers, but I can’t tell how feasible that is for the judges. This might easily get too time consuming, especially when the number of entries keeps increasing. However I would support a form of blind judging. I find the best way to evaluate the readability of a design is to read it without prior knowledge of the word(s) it depicts. Ideally all the judges should be unbiased like this the first time they look at an ambigram. This may not be possible though, because probably at least one of the judges will have to set up such a blind evaluation.

– Simplicity. I understand your call for simplicity. Photoshopping and other advanced effects may seem an easy way out for creating a good ambigram. However, I don’t think that any amount of special effects will make a bad ambigram much better. And although it can improve a good ambigram, it can equally well spoil the design.

Also I’d say that the use of advanced programs to enhance an ambigram should in no way be discouraged. This challenge’s goal is to showcase the best of what’s possible with ambigrams—the state of the art of ambigram design. If that requires advanced techniques, so be it (apparently it doesn’t seem to be necessary, as Elwin Gill’s hand drawn entry proves).

– Coherence. I don’t have much to add here. It should be clear this is also a major aspect the ambigrams should be judged on. Also I trust the judges to be capable enough to evaluate this.

Then some additional ideas. First of all on the recurring request to display more or all of the submitted works: maybe this could be hosted on an external page? It could be as simple as a Flickr ACAC account where the submissions are uploaded to. This would give a nice overview of all entries, without putting the load on the ambigram.com domain.

Secondly, there still is a page on this site with the ACAC official rules. Although it isn’t clear whether these continue to be relevant, I’d suggest that, if they are, every new contest announcement should link to this page.

Lastly it may be nice to send a standard reply to every ACAC entry that is sent in. An automated email system might even work; just something with a “Thank you, we have received your submission”. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to have a notification my entries were received and not got stuck somewhere in the tubes that are the internet.

All in all I’m quite happy with the ACAC in its current form. Maybe these ideas will be of some value, but if there are other plans on improving the challenge, I’m fine with that too.

Here’s what I think about your suggestions:

1. Thanks for your comment on my piece. I do agree that readability should be the first thing we ambigrammatists should consider and ordinary people are the best judges we have in this matter. Sometimes, I even think that at some point, we ambigrammatists may even have developed a “disease” wherein we are able to read each other’s solutions (albeit with difficulty) that would otherwise baffle ordinary people.

2. I believe you realize that most ambigrammatists participating in the competition will most likely put their submissions into their own portfolios. That being said, decorative backgrounds should not be prohibited in my opinion. It depends on the artist if he/she will use backgrounds to further the beauty of the piece (Daniel Dostal does this, imo) or simply cover up for the ambigram’s weaknesses. I think we should simply trust the judges on this matter. We don’t want to restrict the artist’s creative juices now, do we?

3. Again, fixed words restrict the ambigrammatist’s imagination. Your suggestion regarding two competitions (one with fixed words and another with a theme) is fair enough for everyone although our judges are still HUMANS. They need time and the fewer pieces there are, the better it will be judged.

I don’t mean to offend but I really gave these things a lot of thought both as an ambigrammatist and as an ordinary person.

Last note, anyone else thought of Mr. Langdon being a judge?

First of all, sorry to everybody that have been or will be offended by my words. I’ve partecipated to NAGFA’s competitions before coming here. I’m not such a great ambigramist even if I know what I like and which are the common mistakes on the subject.
Mine is “love” for ambigrams, not hatred against anybody. That told, I’ll go on.

I’m a fan of Scott Kim after reading (ages ago) an article on American Science about him. I love his “simplicity” and the almost total absence of background. As Einstein stated “it is very difficult to make things simple”.

Since then (already 20 years? how possible?) I followed ambigrams’ evolution, from the very simple first to the modern son-of-Illustrator ones.

I believe that an ambigram to be such must respect a few rules:

* readability: it must be readable by at least 80% of “normal” people (not only ambigramists; a 20% couldn’t find a meaning in a Courier New text). Sorry Johan Skilling but I cannot understand your city even after trying hard (it is even possible I’m among the 20% in this case, so don’t take it as an offence)
The best judges to choose the winner would be the first 10 random people you meet on the way to the shopping mall.

* simplicity: it is possible to work it out with pencil and paper. Using Coreldraw/Illustrator/Inkscape to add text effects is often a way to hide defects or poor design. If an ambigram is well done you don’t need anything added. I’m not against a meaningful background but it is rarely necessary. Some ambigrams are so “crowded” that the real text is lost among lines, floating curves and borders. In Dave Bailey’s the Paris is great even without the surrounding border, so in this case the background is neutral.
A nice background full of colors and glitters and light rays can give “illegal” advantage on ambigramists not in touch with computer design. Again: if we are talking about composition, it’s ok. If we talk about content, it is not and backgrounds have to be kept as blank as possible. That’s why I proposed a double competition.

* coherence. Fonts (look at John’s an his Fraktur-font LOVE compared to the rest) and letters must keep a resemblance along the way. John, I don’t hate you, sorry for being so rude: but you among us are a star and as such you are subject to judgement more that normal people.

After this ugly (and arrogant) lesson I would propose a couple of extra ideas for ACAC:
1) Fixed words. It would be nice to see how different people devise different solutions for the same problem. Instead of a theme it would be nice to have the same words/same sentence for everybody. A word with its opposite, for example. Long words, perhaps, just to make the game more interesting.
2) it would be nice, if you prefere to go on with themes, to ask as an extra exercise to recreate the previous winner’s design. Without any prize, just the satisfaction to be put in the gallery among the best 5. <> We would feel less the time between ACACs keeping our head and hands busy…
3) out of respect for every partecipant it would be nice to know how the ambigram has been judged. I can imagine myself: if I send ambigrams for 5 ACACs in a row without a feedback I would become annoyed refusing to participate further…

Thank you for the possibility to express my ideas. I would like to know what other competitors think, not only the editors!

Nice day
Alessandro

Hope I answered your questions. Feel free to email me with any other thoughts or comments. Thank you for commenting!

Nikita
nikita@ambigram.com