Ambigrams Revealed: A Graphic Designer‘s Guide To Creating Typographic Art Using Optical Illusions, Symmetry, and Visual Perception

Chapter 2. Case Studies

Case Study 1: John Langdon

Figure 2.1. The finished ambigram.

I first heard the word “syzygy” on Cheers in the mid 1980s. Fans of the show might recall that it was the name of Diane Chambers’s poetry group. Something told me it was a pretty cool word, and a few years later, it turned out to fit nicely into my book of ambigrams called Wordplay. In those days, before the Internet had become popular and before Dan Brown had written his first book, I chose the words I designed as ambigrams based on their meanings. Most of the words that interested me were words that denoted or implied some duality that I could relate to my ...