How To Create Ambigrams: Part I

Well, to say that one can describe/teach how to create ambigrams will be incorrect. But by seeing examples, tricks and with little practice one can develop the art of making Ambigrams.

We will now see how to make ambigrams for some words. Select a word that you would want to make an ambigram for. Write it on a paper and below it repeat it inverted, like this.

After that, try to match alphabets which can be easily modified, twisted or bended slightly to look like corresponding alphabet in the opposite image.

To begin with our letter HARTLEY, if you carefully observe, the H in upper text and Y in lower text can be modified to get correct alphabet in corresponding direction. 

One good thing about ambigrams is that if you crack one word, one more gets cracked and hence we can work on ambigrams from two ends. Like in our case first letter H in upper text matches with inverted Y in lower text, similarly last letter Y in upper text matches with inverted H in lower text. 

Next, we work on A & inverted E, which is very simple as shown below. If you keep working on ambigrams you get used to such pairs which you will come across in most words. So ambigrams are all about practice.

Similarly, if you try to use R in such a way that looks like L in inverted view, we get R-L pair and now we are left with the only alphabet T. 

When the number of letters are odd, making ambigrams can be a little tricky for those alphabets which cannot look like themselves in inverted view. Luckily, it is very easy to make T look like T in inverted image. Some other alphabets which are easy are: O, S, N, Q, I, F, H, J, L, Z, X.

Finally !!! We have the ambigram ready. See for yourself if it indeed looks like HARTLEY in the inverted image.