It seems to rely in part on using little bits which may or may not be perceived as part of the letters, or conversely on making "almost-letters" which are recognized without being 100% complete. It's all based on a clever optical trick. The human brain automatically "fills in the approximations" when it's trained for character recognition. Remember how some handwritings demand a lot of guesswork!
I saw on Wikipedia an iranian calligraphy that's an ambigram, spelling [in Arabic] "Muhammad - Ali". (The Prophet, and his revered son-in-law. United in one symbol. Pretty neat. I'm sure it has shiite believers in awe at the "coincidence".) Then again, the Middle East was always a good place for "writing art". I'm not sure it would be as easy to do in Chinese. But I might be fantastically wrong there!
I also once saw, in a fashion magazine, a T-shirt with the word "Love" written on it. Its reflection in a mirror reads "Hate". What do you call this? A "mirrogram"? ;-)
During my last internship, I invented an "inside joke" with my buddies. I used to page them using, instead of the 4-digit number of the phone I was using, the number 07734. Type it on a calculator, and then flip it. ;-) I actually saw that trick in an old Tex Avery cartoon, where the horny wolf has a car with a flipping license plate at the press of a button. "Wink-wink nudge-nudge, baby!"
5 comments:
You are right that there seem to be certain 'rules' to ambigram creation that can be taught. What they are, i haven't exactly figured out yet.
Have you seen www.flipscript.com? They seem to have figured out a lot (if not all) of the 'rules'.
Thanks for the link. (Though as a link it just takes ya to my blog. The site is here.)
I guess the rules must be pairing of letters: "here's what you do when an E should look like an S upside down" etc.
... a-ight, the site can't make one from either my first or second name.
It seems to rely in part on using little bits which may or may not be perceived as part of the letters, or conversely on making "almost-letters" which are recognized without being 100% complete. It's all based on a clever optical trick.
The human brain automatically "fills in the approximations" when it's trained for character recognition. Remember how some handwritings demand a lot of guesswork!
I saw on Wikipedia an iranian calligraphy that's an ambigram, spelling [in Arabic] "Muhammad - Ali". (The Prophet, and his revered son-in-law. United in one symbol. Pretty neat. I'm sure it has shiite believers in awe at the "coincidence".)
Then again, the Middle East was always a good place for "writing art".
I'm not sure it would be as easy to do in Chinese. But I might be fantastically wrong there!
I also once saw, in a fashion magazine, a T-shirt with the word "Love" written on it. Its reflection in a mirror reads "Hate".
What do you call this? A "mirrogram"? ;-)
During my last internship, I invented an "inside joke" with my buddies. I used to page them using, instead of the 4-digit number of the phone I was using, the number 07734.
Type it on a calculator, and then flip it. ;-)
I actually saw that trick in an old Tex Avery cartoon, where the horny wolf has a car with a flipping license plate at the press of a button. "Wink-wink nudge-nudge, baby!"
I bet I could design something by hand, even where this site has failed. Let me sleep on it. For a few weeks. ;-)
That site also fails if you try replacing your first name with "DIRTYOLDMAN".
So I can take my mind out of the gutter now! ;-)
I really like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wave-particle.jpg
AH-HA! Found it: the Arabic Muhammad/Ali ambigram.
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