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

Introduction

Great discoveries usually happen by accident, and my ambigram discovery was no exception. I was sitting in a bookstore with a randomly selected book, Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown when I stumbled upon my very first ambigram (Figure I.1). The rest of the book ceased to exist as the next hour was spent with pencil and paper in hand in an attempt to figure out just how this typographic design worked. Although that attempt was not successful, giving up was not in my nature: I spent weeks researching and sketching before I created my first ambigram (Figure I.2). As raw as it was aesthetically, it was an ambigram: fairly legible, readable, and when rotated 180 degrees, it read the same. I was ecstatic, knowing that I had found a new artistic ...