Evolution of an Ambigram

Hmm... Looks like I forgot to link Art & Science of the Ambigram on the sidebar. Must fix that. In retrospect, it is much more well-written than I thought.

This post will address the evolution of an ambigram. I'm not sure how it's done, but I do it anyway. So I decided to go ahead and do one, observing how I do it. My method is very different from say, Mishra's or Langdon's, but it's mine! And even then, my method differs from ambigram to ambigram.

Unlike Langdon, I don't solve the word then decide on a 'style'. I decide a 'style' first (sometimes), then I try to beat the solution into the 'style'. Different styles can accept different kinds solutions. Not all solutions are acceptable in all styles, I use the style I have in mind to narrow the range of acceptable solutions.

This is the one I did:



Here's how it evolved pretty much in chronological order. Right click and select Open in new window.



Step 1 - I was slacking and I thought of a nice V/R inversion. Now, what starts with 'V' and ends with 'R'. Oh, Victor of course. Switch on the computer, open Inkscape (yay! Inkscape. I used to open GIMP...) Select the 'calligraphic' tool and produce the figure.

Step 2 - Write 'VictoR' down using the calligraphic tool. I normally skip this step because I can usually visualise in my mind. I do this just so I won't misspell later.

Step 3 - OK, c/o are round letters so they go together. V goes on R, 't' is pretty symmetrical on its own. Right, so where do I stuff the 'i'? It's pretty straight so I should probably stick it on V and map it on R. Or maybe an 'ic'/'o'? Bla, just mess around with a few ideas using the calligraphic tool and see if I can get something workable.

Step 4 - The last one looks workable, but I might have problems with the size of 'i' later. Lets add some 'flourish' to make it more readable. 'i's ideally should be dotted, but an out of place dot in an ambigram just looks sloppy...! Glue it to V/R and it'll look acceptable. Hmm...? Good. At this point, I'll ignore 't' because it's quite symmetrical on it's own.

Step 5 - Experiment with kerning. Also, tweaked the c/o to look more readable both ways. Psst... I'll give you a tip. c is a broken letter, while o prefers to be closed. Well, the more 'closed' it is, the more it looks like o, but less like c. 'o' has a natural symmetry on it's own, but you won't want it to look like 'o' both ways, so this natural symmetry is bad in this case. I got around this problem by making the bottom bit of 'c' thinner and subtly longer as well as added much distracting flourish. Most people write a cursive 'o' with an upper loop of sorts. Took advantage of that.

Step 6 - Once I was happy with the result, I used bezier curves to try to reproduce a 'cleaner' version. Still ignoring 't'.

Step 7 - I thought the 'i' was too long to be plausible, and the 'dot' was unnaturally placed. Bah! I suck at manipulating bezier curves... So I tweak it some more. At this point of time, I realize the 't' looks terrible and is vaguely like an 'x'. I decide on doing a 'double dagger'-style 't'. Normally, I won't use double-dagger 't's, but it seemed to fit the 'feel' I wanted for the word.

Step 8 - Stick the double daggers in. OK, the baseline is too wavy. 'i' is still too long.

Step 9 - Tweak the 'i', then shear the word to fix the baseline somewhat. Ha! Shearing word to fix the baseline is a cheap trick I recently figured out. This only works for rotational ambigrams, though.

PS. Whoa... my photobucket site gets more hits a month then my blog in a year? Wha...? I blame the ambigrams there... I think.