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Sunday, October 11, 2009



As a companion piece to, and sparked by. Sir Bowie's fine blog about Palindromes, I was compelled, as a calligrapher and artgeneer on my very own Letter Farm to introduce the KMSA to Ambigrams, or in any case one of the many versions of ambigrams; the inversion.

Many folk have claimed to have invented these from any date from 1893 to the nineteen seventies, but as mentioned in the Dan Brown Book "Angels and Demons" and to people like myself who always have their head in some medieval text, it certainly wasn't beyond the wit and the skill of the scribe Monks to hide words within words, and often we are searching for them still.

Myself, I have been playing with them since college days, when the title of the Blog entered me into the realms of possibilities within typography

From then on its just a case of ramping up to see how far it is to go..... and at this point I am going to revel in the fun of being able to get my fellow Knights and Ladies out of their comfy computer seats, and have you all stand with bodies bent and necks crooked over to the right, to read the monitors upside down.... so here we go.... ready??? come on ..its the only exercise you're going to do all day;

an example of an easy one is Art;


or how about a bit of Funk;


then here's one you can print off to put into a Birthday card for a nephew or niece....saying wishing, Happy Birthday , Blessings

If you want to get really complex try this one, which says
City of Brotherly Love : Philadelphia


I like it when text and meaning can be added to the picture to make the experience more revealing. Like these three examples of " Philosphy,Art & Science" "Reflect" and "Ambiguity"







Those are all vertical Inversions,

A good example of a Horizontal Inversion in practical use,is the DeLorean Motor Company logo, which would have looked real peachy in your rear view mirror in the seventies;


And to end this Blog with a bit of wisdom...and lets face it guys we all need a bit of wisdom... my interest in Ambigrams always seemed to go arm in arm with a bit of Taoism... where all things are naturally bound together and often are just two sides of the same coin....

Take the words Love and Hate. ........

Really, one is really just an Inversion of the other.


Sir Dayvd of Oxfordshire

2 comments:

  1. I've just thought... of course the people with laptops and i.Phones just have to turn them round 180 degrees... ( sigh )..technology makes man even lazier...:))

    DO

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  2. My brain hurts! But, thanks for the exercise!

    Sir Hook the Simpleton of Warrick

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