Here I am so elegant ... upside down, I'm quite different.

August 30, 2002 10:06 AM

Here I am so elegant ... upside down, I'm quite different.
Just for the "cool!" of them (and not just because it's Friday) - a nice collection of reversible matchbox portraits.
This man patronizes us ... This man wishes he had.
posted by yhbc (17 comments total)

very cool - thanks... chump!
posted by modge at 10:18 AM on August 30, 2002

Wow, the portraits leave me in awe by themselves, but as a designer the chump logo rocks my feeble logo-designing world.
posted by Stan Chin at 10:21 AM on August 30, 2002

Check out what happens to Uncle Abe.
posted by gwint at 10:25 AM on August 30, 2002

Stan, I found this site while looking for more info about Scott Kim, who first published his book Inversions in 1981 - if you like the chump logo, you'll love Scott's works - many of which he has now animated, as well.
posted by yhbc at 10:26 AM on August 30, 2002

I have a great book featuring faces that work both ways like those matchbook examples. I believe it's called "Topsy-Turvy," but it's packed away and I can't find anything on the web about it. I had a copy as a child and lost it and spent 15 years looking for another before finding one in a used bookstore in Phoenix. Great stuff!
posted by rushmc at 10:32 AM on August 30, 2002

Wonderful, thanks - it's when you try to draw these you realize how difficult (impossible?) they are.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:32 AM on August 30, 2002

This is great! Thanks. Especially like the chump logo and the Dragoon/The Elephant.
posted by Grod at 10:37 AM on August 30, 2002

yhbc - I'm drooling. I'm only 25% way through looking through Kim's work. This Origami one is fantastic! Also, Elise Diamond is similar. I have a new design hero, time to practice doing some.

The tesselating alphabet is also an extraordinary typographic experiment.
posted by Stan Chin at 10:45 AM on August 30, 2002

Excellent morning link! Here's one by Dali. rushmc, I vaguely remember a book like that from my childhood.
posted by snez at 10:46 AM on August 30, 2002

Thanks, yhbc!

Stan, you may also want to look at Langdon who was introduced to me by mdn in one of my earliest Mefi exchanges (ah, memories)
posted by vacapinta at 11:24 AM on August 30, 2002

I'm getting very dizzy.
posted by anathema at 11:59 AM on August 30, 2002

Have you seen tattoos like this? The best I've seen was a skull, yet when flipped a vase full of roses tattooed on a guys arm. When I saw it I thought wow now that is original and worth having. I wish my birth mark could do that, be something else besides a blob on my leg. O' yea sometimes people mistake it for a food stain while wearing shorts.
posted by thomcatspike at 2:25 PM on August 30, 2002

Well, well. My great-grandparents had this picture on a plate, which was one of the many things that spooked me in their house. Thanks ybhc. No, really, very cool link
posted by ceiriog at 2:33 PM on August 30, 2002

I think Scott Kim put out a Inversions program (on floppy!) a long time ago. I had it when my Mac Classic was new. It had explainations of what he was doing, font sets and a graphics program one could use to make ones own inversions.
posted by jazon at 5:39 PM on August 30, 2002

Excellent! Here's more upside down art for those who can't get enough.

Rushmc - this page includes several works by the artist you are talking about, Peter Newell, and they are wonderful (especially man coming out of water/drowning man). The bad news is that it seems there was a follow-up to "Topsys and Turvies", so you might have to start another hunt!
posted by taz at 3:38 AM on August 31, 2002

So hideous... but so interesting...
thanks
posted by statisticalpurposes at 11:29 AM on August 31, 2002

Peter Newell--that's it! Thanks, taz.
posted by rushmc at 2:16 PM on August 31, 2002