Reddit reviews Wordplay: The Philosophy, Art, and Science of Ambigrams
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Used Book in Good Condition
This is a list of books that was suggest to me by John Langdon (An internationally known typographer for his ambigram used in The DaVinci Code) while I was taking his class in College:
Type Directors Club Annuals: I just recently picked up the latest issue of this (32 I believe) and it shows current works of typography across a broad spectrum of mediums. These are great because they feature only current work and many of the featured designs are extremely creative and pushing the envelope in terms of readability and style.
Logo Lounge Master Library Vol. 1: I do not have a copy of this book but I have thumbed through it briefly and it features tons of logos that mainly deal with letter forms. This is certainly on my personal list of books I would like.
Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Vol. 1: I recently purchased this book as well and I have to say it is a MASSIVE collection of vintage typography and ornaments from type founders all over the world. The majority of the samples in this book are from before the 1900's so you are almost guaranteed to not recognize anything in it. Excellent resource for inspiration!
Logo, Font & Lettering Bible: This is another book on my list. Covers a broad spectrum of lettering and is also good for learning fundementals.
Some other books he has suggested to me but I have not personally look through or read are: Type & Typography, Fonts & Logos, and finally John Langdon's book: Wordplay.
I hope this helps!
I'd highly recommend Ambigrams Revealed, not only because my artwork is in it, but also because there's a whole section going in depth into how some artist created their pieces. The wordplay books are good as well.
You could also come by the Ambigrams Revealed website, where I'm trying my best to get the forums active :). I'm hoping, along with the owner of the site, to get it to be a thriving place where people can help each other learn and improve their work.
Several of these are ripped from John Langdon; at the very least me/you and illusion appear in his excellent book Wordplay.
For anyone interested, it's from an ambigram book called Wordplay by John Langdon, the typographer who created the ambigrams for Angels & Demons.
I have to disagree with a couple of things you said.
>There isn't any one authorative definition to "ambigram".
Sure there is. Here's a really concise definition of ambigram from Ambigram.com. Ambigram.com is a web magazine dedicated to the art of ambigram. They work closely with John Langdon, a typographer, who has produced popular and significant works like the 'Illuminati' ambigram and the 'Earth-Air-Fire-Water' ambigrams from Dan Brown's book "Angels and Demons", and has written the book Wordplay which discusses the philosophy of ambigram. He is also currently working as a typography professor at Drexel University. That sound pretty authoritive to me.
>In practice it often conflates just to mean typographical works that look and read the same if rotated 180 degrees. But of course there are some mirror ambigrams and ambigrams that don't look or read the same after the rotation or mirroring. And hardly anyone would say that they are not proper ambigrams.
>But there onwards things get iffy. What if you create a chain or mesh, where words themselves don't turn into full words? What if the only ambivalence in the mesh in in the intersections and mirrored or rotated words don't turn into anything legible? What if you create a rotation or mirroring that flips the roles of background and text? What if there's no rotation needed, the only ambivalence comes from what you see as background and what as foreground...
By the definition given by Ambigram.com, it is clearly defined that "an ambigram is a typographical creation that presents two or more separate words within the same physical space."
They also clearly outlined that there are several types of ambigram, namely:
Though personally I don't believe this list is exhaustive, yet. We may, in the future, encounter new permutation of ambigram that fits into the definition but doesn't fall into any of these four existing categories.
> Pretty much all typographical tricks where you try to evoke multiple interpretations can be loosely called ambigrams. I'd say this one is pretty far from the strict definition, but it's a 3D object that could even be called a 3D glyph, and it definitely turns into different letters depending on how you rotate it. So it's one letter long 90 degree rotational 3D ambigram?
On the contrary, if you follow the definition of ambigram from Ambigram.com closely, this actually falls perfectly into the definition of an ambigram. It is a typographical creation. Check. It does presents two or more separate words (well, it is justifiable in this situation to call the singular letter A, B, and C as words even though two out of three of them aren't technically word in the traditional sense). Check. And it was done within the same physical space (perceptually, it is was done in 3-dimensional space as oppose to 2-dimensional that we're used to). Check. Yup. Sounds like an ambigram to me.
EDIT: Also check out John Langdon other works at his website.