» This is a tutorial on how I go about making an ambigram

» Not all words are ambigram-able. So, pick your words safely

» Basically, start by choosing the word carefully

» No matter what you do, making an i look like an o is difficult

» So don’t choose words where you will have to do that

» I use a tool called “Inkscape”. You could do this with MS Paint or Photoshop as well

» Write down the word you want to work on, and work on it one letter at a time

» Make the first letter look like the inverted version of the last letter as much as possible

» Then the second letter like the second last letter and so on

» Create a skeleton and then tweak the curves to suit the word based on a trial and error method.

» For this tutorial, I have chosen to make an ambigram of the word “Sisters”

» Now, I write down the word on Inkscape, copy and paste it, and then rotate it by 180 degrees.

» In a rotational ambigram, the original and the inverted word look the same. So, our idea is to write the letter in the original to match the rotated version

» Letters S, N, H, I, O, Z, X, T are naturally symmetric about certain axes

» So, since “SisterS” starts and ends with an S, we will not have to worry about the first and last letters.

» Also, since the “t” is the central letter, we will not have to worry about rotating that either

» The next slide shows the “S”

» Now, we will have to look at the second letter.

» We need to make the “I” look like “r”

» If you look at the below image, the inverted r looks like an i naturally, except for the dot

» The next slide shows it on the drawing

» The trickiest part of this word is making the s look like an inverted e.

» When we normally write “S” or “s” it will not be possible to make it look like an inverted “e”

» So, we will have to look at writing it in cursive. This part of making an ambigram involves your imagination. You can play with the ways you write s to make it look like an inverted “e”

» To me, the loop in the inverted “e” can be made to look like the loop in the cursive s

» This is what I have tried in the next slide

» “t” is invertible naturally, if written like a cross with a long vertical stroke and a short horizontal stroke like shown below

» Now I’ve put all the characters created into the word. This will be the rough skeleton for the final image.

» The good ambigrams work when the letter spacing is good, and when the letters look like they are part of the same font family.

» So, there will be more work on this to bring it to the final form

» Here is the recap

» Write down the word you want to work on, and work on it one letter at a time

» Make the first letter look like the inverted version of the last letter as much as possible

» Then the second letter like the second last letter and so on

» Create a skeleton and then tweak the curves to suit the word based on a trial and error method.

Thank you