Ambigrams on the web

by | Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Many years ago I got bitten by the Ambigram bug and before I knew it I had created hundreds! This was of course long before Dan Brown and Angels and Demons made ambigrams wildly popular. It has been fun to see what was once a fringe activity take on a wider popularity. There was a time that I could actually count the number of ambigram artists on the fingers of my hand, and, in fact, most of us knew each other, either formally or informally. Things are very different today as a Google search will easily reveal, but this also means that keeping track of all that is going on in the ambigram field is extremely difficult.

Over the past few months I have been talking with Mark Hunter a gentleman who is trying to make high quality ambigrams accessible to more people, and to raise awareness of ambigrams worldwide.  He is doing this through two different web sites.

He is also the owner of Ambigram.com, which seeks to be an almost one stop site for all you need to know about ambigrams. He told me about how he spent a considerable sum to purchase the Ambigram.com domain name and has worked hard to grow its membership. He has been quite successful in this and in fact they they recently announced their new Ambigrammy Awards! (How cool is that.) He also maintains a list of artists practicing this craft (your’s truly being one of them).

He also runs FlipScript.com, a site dedicated to creating high quality ambigrams on demand. The results are actually quite good, far better than previous attempts to accomplish this task.  Don’t miss his demonstration short story made up of more than 30 ambigrams.

If you are interested in visual wordplay these sites may be excellent time-sinks!

Topics related to this post: Ambigrams | Art | Blogging | Creativity | Design | Fun | Personal | Puzzles | Representation | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Update V

Here is an email from Rita Selle-Grider, of Young Bright Minds & Inventors Academy. I have spoken about her response (which I admired, contrasting it with some of the other responses I have been getting). I include the complete email below (with her permission). What...

From brains to music

From brains to music

From Brains to Music: a Multi-Faceted Discussion of Creativity with Dr. Anthony Brandt Dr. Anthony Brandt, is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University and is co-founder and artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Musiqa. He has co-authored...

Chris Fahnoe paper wins two awards at SITE

Chris Fahnoe is a doctoral student in our hybrid PhD program. As a part of his practicum research he conducted a study investigating whether students embedded in technology-rich, self-directed, open-ended learning environments develop self-regulation skills? We...

TED talk: How to design a school for the future

TED talk: How to design a school for the future

My TED talk, titled How to design a school for the future just went live this morning. Sadly, I was traveling in India when the recordings were scheduled so I missed the whole "standing on the red-dot" looking like a thought leader who will give a talk that will...

Jugaad, educational toys from Junk (TPACK at work)

I had written earlier about the idea of Jugaad, the quintessential Indian idea of situational creativity. One of the masters at this is Arvind Gupta. Check out his website for tons of wonderful science toys and experiments that can be made from stuff we typically...

Technology in schools: Detroit Free Press & Edutopia

For the record, I was quoted in today's Detroit Free Press in an article titled: School districts expanding technology, but training is key to success. In addition, two of my partners in crime (Matt Koehler & Candace Marcotte) were mentioned in an Edutopia article...

(de)Signs, a series on Slate

Slate magazine is running an interesting series by Julia Turner on signs and their design. Two articles are now up The Secret Language of Signs: They're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention. Lost in Penn Station: Why are the signs at...

Technology, Design & OofSI at E-Learn 2018

Technology, Design & OofSI at E-Learn 2018

Most of the work that we do at the Office of Scholarship and Innovation at the Teachers College is practical and pragmatic—working with school districts through our community design model, reimagining what university technology labs can be, supporting faculty in their...

1 Comment

  1. nagfa

    Salutations,

    I was reminded of how close knit the worldwide ambigram community was via the constant interactions and discussions when we had our now-defunct NAC Nagfa’s Ambigram Challenge. A family.

    And was it only a few months back when your good self was on our shores (Singapore) for a talk pertaining the teaching profession. I received an invitational email, and upon seeing your name, was pleasantly surprised: a prominent ambigram activist being in the same auditorium.. But alas! Another duty changed it all.

    Been a fan of your work for as long as I remember doing ambigrams.

    nagfa

    Reply

Leave a Reply to nagfa Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *