Thread: Ambigram Contest!

Good work Adam!

If you want to experiment some more, I'll tell you my technique:

The first thing I do is write down the two words I want to merge, one above the other. So, if I'm trying to do "Darien" both ways, I'll write "Darien", flip the paper upside-down, and write "Darien" again above that. I then look for similar shapes in the words. If you're doing the same word twice, you only have to match the first half of the word with the second half, and then mirror that on the other side.

I often do things in blocks, for example with Jason, I made a shape that looks like "n" one way, and "vi" the other way - I refer to this as a "n-vi link". In "Darien", I used a DA-EN link and an RI-RI link. When trying to make these links, it helps to write each letter in as many different ways as you can think of, as long as it's recognizable. This way, you have more chances of getting shapes that match up, and easier links.

There are also a few tricks I use a lot, like making the bar on an "A" be halfway displaced, so it can be part of a different letter when upside down, or the "R" thing I did in Darien - the general idea is to make three separate figures that the mind arranges into different groupings depending on the way you look at them.

One trick I've recently picked up is altering the 'font' of all of the letters in order to mask an awkward link. I used this in "White-Black", by doubling the lines on the T and I, I was able to make the doubled edge of the A (which becomes the H) not seem as awkward as it might have otherwise.

That's most of what I've picked up so far. Feel free to share any tricks you discover!