the hijinks of molly & tara

One of Tara and I’s obsessions while traveling was creating ambigrams. They first came onto our radar when we were discussing the design possibilities for our next circus venture, Downside-Up. With a name like that, there are so many graphic possibilities, but I realized an ambigram would be the most apropos.

What is an ambigram?  According to Wired, ambigrams are the hottest trend in typography since Helvetica.  An ambigram is a word-image that can be read from multiple vantage points, most commonly by flipping it 180 degrees.  Ambigrams were popularized a few years ago by Dan Brown’s book Angels and Demons, which features several ambigrams as plot points, including this one to the left.

Now, the complex gothic ambigrams from Angels and Demons were the only ones I was very familiar with, and I believed them to be for advanced artists, mathematicians, designers – not for amateur typographers and doodlers like us.

ambigram in progress

NOT SO!  Ambigrams are fun AND easy to make!  Tara and I made loads of them on our many long train rides around Europe.  It’s pretty simple – I just start with writing the word below itself upside down.  Then look at each of the letter pairs, think about the key components in each letter necessary to define it, and start doodling different ways those letters can be combined.  Think about how to turn necessary letter strokes into decorative elements.  It also helps to consider both upper and lower case letters, I thought ‘SEATTLE’ would be impossible, until I thought to try it with lower case letters.I’m in the process of digitizing the Downside-Up ambigram for a logo now, but meanwhile here’s another one I’m working on.  Try making them sometime!  And don’t go looking for any lame ambigram generators on the internet – get out a pencil and pad and do it yourself.   It’s like solving a logic puzzle.

For more on ambigrams, check out:

http://www.johnlangdon.net/ – the website of the Prof who’s one of the leading ambigram scholars, he also made all the ambigrams for Dan Brown.

http://www.ambigram.com/ – online magazine about everything ambigram.

little known fact about myself: i played clarinet in band in 8thgrade. in 9th grade, i played clarinet in marching band. despite the amount of time that has passed since my questionable flirtation with the instrument, in a spurt of inspired optimism, i have decided to attempt to persue the clarinet once again. i know the limits of my musical ability, but i figure practicing can at least extend my efforts to be listenable/on beat/in tune: practice makes… better, right? though first attempts do show that i have forgotten how to read music, as well as all the fingerings of the notes. starting from scratch… what fun!

this renewed interest stems from my recent love affair with klezmer, swing jazz, and gypsy music. i know it’s gonna take forever, but i’d love to be a part of a group that makes music like the music these groups make, bands that slapdashedly combine words like ‘circus,’ ‘punk,’ ‘queer,’ & ‘gypsy’ when attempting to describe themselves:

Guignol (listen to: Bad Day at the UN)

Circus Contraption (Shneykol)

Mucca Pazza (Coat Czech)

Rude Mechanical Orchestra (Baraat)

(*bonus link! one (permanent) interpretation of ‘the bee’s knees.’)

delicious, yummy, tasty, etc, etc.

Celebrating Molly’s twenty-second-&-a-half birthday last week during my visit to her in Seattle, her mom & I (well, mostly her mom) made her an ampersand cupcake-cake. The cupcakes are one of my favorite kinds of cupcake in the world, made from this incredible vegan chocolate cupcake recipe.

Now I want to make more cupcake-cakes, because I love the idea of perforated dessert… & because of the endless icing opportunities: 

Pac-man's not the only one eating those coins!