Introduction

This is the first post for this freshly created weblog, or blog as it is usually called nowadays. For the first post it would make sense to tell what topics this weblog is going to cover. However, since I have more than one interest, I am not entirely sure about which subjects I am going to post here. My most dominant interest at the moment seems to be ambigrams. If you do not know what those are, Take a look at the Wikipedia article.

For the time being ambigrams will be the main subject of this weblog. I realize this is quickly becoming a more and more popular subject and I am likely not the only one to start with an ambigram themed weblog. However, there seems to be no better time than now, since all the publicity from the 'Angels and Demons' Movie has spurred the interest in ambigrams.

Now I want to stress here that none of the Angels and Demons franchise is the reason for my interest in ambigrams. I have not seen the movie, never read any of Dan Browns books and the first ambigram I saw was entirely unrelated. Then what was that first inspiration?

I believe the first ambigram I stumbled upon was one by Scott Kim, reading 'Upside Down' both normally and rotated 180°. I found it in a book with optical illusions, but unfortunately it was the only ambigram in there. It did inspire me at the time to try a few of my own, most of which probably failed horribly.

That was years ago and even though the Angels and demons book had already been published, its popularity had not yet spread far enough to reach me. It was only years later when It did and I rediscovered ambigrams. Since then I have been playing with this art form and made quite a few ambigrams myself. Some of my latest more successful attempts can be seen in my DeviantArt gallery. I may repost a few of them on this weblog with some additional thoughts.

To conclude this post, there is one other ambigram I would like to mention here. I only remembered about it last week and it did not really influence my interest in ambigrams. It is an old logo from a Dutch educational TV-channel, the 'NOT', and my encounter dates all the way back to elementary school. I do not think it is being used anymore, but I will reproduce it here.

NOT logo

What is interesting is that it is an example of the much rarer diagonal mirror ambigram. It may be even the first in its sort—at least it is the first one I remember.

Well, that is it for now. I hope my future musings on this weblog will be enjoyable.