
Pick out two to take to your tattoo artist. Naturally, you'll go online to research the different variations & Tribal ambigram tattoos are becoming popular. They like, but there's plenty of people who finish up with the same Search for a new tattoo design & plenty of people find two that Paul McCartney is but one of many rock musicians who have featured an ambigram on at least one of his albums. Quality so readily appreciated on music albums and book jackets. The name Robert Langdon (the hero from the novel) is also anĪmbigram tattoos are popular with graphicĪrtists, due not only to their unique symmetry but to their mysterious That were used for the book cover, and a link to his website fromīrown's meant he was "suddenly inundated" with commissions. Popularity of theĪmbigram soared when they were intertwined into the plot of Dan Brown'sīestseller 'Angels and Demons', the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. On the covers of some recent best-selling books. John Langdon is truly one of the great ambigramists, his work appearing The 1999 edition of Hofstadter's Gödel,Įscher, Bach features a 3-D ambigram on the cover. The origin of the word to conversations among a small group ofįriends during 1983-1984. Published reference to "ambigram" was by Hofstadter, who attributes Inversions as the title of his first collection in 1981. Invented by himself and by Scott Kim in the 1970s.

Optical illusion with an intriguing graphic design that never fails to intrigue.Īccording to practitioner John Langdon, ambigrams were independently Way the figure is spelled! The best tattoo artists can create an See a devil, but turn it around and an angel appears, or at least the Rotated, reversed, or reflected in mirrors, with the meaning sometimesĬhanging, sometimes remaining the same. Depending on the ambigram's concept, it can be A design may consist of a single word orĪn entire phrase. To choose from, and a great range of scripts and fonts, from simplyĮlegant to graphically gothic. The shifting positive and negative spaces can play tricks on our visual perception, casting a spell on the beholder.įor tattoo aficionados, there's a dictionary of ambigram designs

Is sometimes referred to as an ' inversion' or 'flipscript', but regardless of the description, most people appreciate it as an optical illusion. Script or the figure is viewed, it still spells out the same thing. An increasingly popular motif in tattoo parlours is the ambigram - a graphicįigure that can be flipped, mirrored or inverted, yet whichever way the
