This ain't your father's palindromes

August 19, 2005 10:01 AM

Ambigrams are words or phrases that can be read in more than one way or from more than a single vantage point, most commonly right-side-up and upside-down. Ambigram.Matic is the world's first and only online Ambigram Generator! Flip any word, different words of the same length, or even an entire (symmetrically spaced) sentence on its head, and read it both ways!
posted by mr.dan (19 comments total)

But Angels and Demons said these were nearly impossible to create!
posted by smackfu at 10:09 AM on August 19, 2005

Some of those "combined" characters are pretty darn close to impossible to read, close enough that someone who doesn't know would have to study it to understand what was written. I don't see that as really counting as a true ambigram.
posted by evilangela at 10:14 AM on August 19, 2005

Yeah, but it's still pretty neat-o.
posted by Specklet at 10:21 AM on August 19, 2005

Neat... try "XXXXXX" and "OOOOO".

Bless it's heart, it tries to make it work. A lesser application would have probably just said "fuck it, ain't no way."
posted by cadastral at 10:28 AM on August 19, 2005

It also wouldn't let me make an Ambigram from Dio that spelled Devil (see black metal thread below).
posted by Pollomacho at 10:29 AM on August 19, 2005

... but then you're like "DDDDD" and "OOOOO".

And he's like "no problem, dude"
posted by cadastral at 10:30 AM on August 19, 2005

Scott Kim.
posted by ericb at 10:37 AM on August 19, 2005 [1 favorite]

Its kind of neat but I'm not really clear on the purpose of it.
posted by fenriq at 10:41 AM on August 19, 2005

Okay, the work of Scott Kim is just awesome. The main ambigram site is pretty cool, but Scott Kim is an amazing artist.
posted by bove at 11:05 AM on August 19, 2005

Interestingly (or maybe not so much), I tried viewing the page while I'm at work, and it mostly loaded (except the images), then froze. I hit Refresh and got the "this page is blocked" message.

Those must be soooooooome letterforms, I'm guessing.
posted by alumshubby at 11:59 AM on August 19, 2005

Heres the guy who did the ambigrams in the DaVinci Code. I'm gonna get the True/False one on this page tattooed :).
posted by Mach5 at 12:07 PM on August 19, 2005

Scott Kim.

As seen here.
posted by languagehat at 12:38 PM on August 19, 2005

paging this guy
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:41 PM on August 19, 2005

I saw Scott Kim at SIGGRAPH a long time ago. He had a booth set up where he'd do your name as an ambigram. My name had him stumped for longer than most, but he nailed it. My first name was read horizontally and my last name vertically. Perfectly legible. Very impressive.

Alas, my copy seems to have vanished over a series of moves. I'm still searching right now. I had forgotten all about that.
posted by brundlefly at 12:52 PM on August 19, 2005

My father, knowing I was a lover of wordplay and typography, picked up a copy of John Langdon's book of amigrams for me in a bargain bin about 10 years ago... it still amazes me every time I open it up and browse through the pages.

My favourite has always been: what goes up must come dn
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:58 PM on August 19, 2005

ambigrams, that is.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:58 PM on August 19, 2005

Petty Officer NIXON had his name tapes (always in all caps) sewn on his uniform. Poof! Petty Officer NOXIN reporting for duty, chief. Funny stuff.
posted by buzzman at 2:43 PM on August 19, 2005

This gallery of ambigrams was put together by a friend of mine who used to draw these things off the top of his head during seminars (see the Chris one, that was for me). Wish my mind could work like that.
posted by cgk at 6:10 PM on August 19, 2005

The first link is jumping to a link dump.
Didn't Scott Kim have a regular feature in Omni magazine in the 80s?
posted by ?! at 9:30 PM on August 20, 2005