New Design Tool for Ambigram (雙向圖 アンビグラム)

We added a new feature called Quarter Mode (now available to beta users, let us know if you want to be included) to facilitate the design of   ambigram  in Expresii.  ​

Ambigrams: East & West

The earliest known ambigram  design from the West was ‘THE END-PUZZLE’ done in 1893 by   Peter Newell.   In the  East, perhaps the earliest   ambigram  design with known period is   the signature of   painter and monk   Bada Shanren  八大山人  (1626 - 1705).   His stylized   signature of '八大山人' resembles the phrases for  'laugh at it'  (笑之) and  'cry at it'    (哭之) at the same time, implying his confusion and feelings of grief for the fate of his country.​
​
In the West, ambigrams were made popular by Dan Brown incorporating John Langdon's ambigram designs into the plot of his year-2000 novel bestseller  Angels & Demons. In around 2013, Japanese artist Issei Nomura (野村一晟) was inspired by Angel & Demons   to dive into ambigram design with Eastern characters, which in turn made ambigram with Chinese characters (kanji) popular in East Asia after media coverage from Japan, Taiwan, China & Hong Kong in 2017. 

Signature of Bada Shanren might be the earliest ambigram.

Design tool Matters

In the West, calligraphy is done with pens so strokes are of sharp lines and curves.  In the East, brushes are used instead for calligraphy. I believe writing/lining instruments such as pen and brushes have great influence on artistic styles. So far, most of ambigram designs are done with lines and curves, even for Eastern characters (like shown on the right).  Today, a typical ambigram design process is to first draft the design on  paper, which requires repeated flipping the paper manually. The author would then make the final design on a computer using vector graphics editor programs.  This manual paper flipping could impede the workflow, and sometimes it's not easy to do tricky mapping on paper.

陰陽 by oyadge01 & 意瞑字査印 2010

Expresii Ambigrams: Brush Calligraphy strokes + Quarter Mode

With new feature  of 'Quarter Mode' in Expresii, we make it easy to create ambigrams directly on a computer, as you can make strokes on one of the quarters and be able to see the result in other   quarters immediately. 

We demo with the Chinese characters for Yin (陰) and Yang (陰).   Yin-Yang is a popular subject for ambigram  previously done several times by Japanese  authors (see works done in 2009: 回文ユンブイカ, unknown author; 2010: oyadge01,  oyadge01×意瞑字査印; 2013: Issie Nomura, 2014: 意瞑字査印; 2015: 意瞑字査印, Satoshi Ito; 2018: Satoshi Ito,  ARTAKANA). In fact,   the famous Yin-Yang symbol ☯   inspired   John Langdon   to do ambigrams back in the 70's.

With Expresii, we can make the strokes with authentic calligraphic look, which sets it apart from all previous ambigrams of Eastern characters:

Calligraphic ambigram 陰陽 made into a chop. Funny thing is, the chop reads 陰, but actually 陽 is imprinted. © Nelson Chu 2018

Ambigram 陰陽 chop when lit. Yang (陽) in Light, Yin (陰) as negative print. © Nelson Chu 2018

Conclusion

We hope to contribute to the development of our culture by introducing new tool for designing ambigram. In particular, since Eastern calligraphy has been done with a brush for thousands of years, we would like to make it easy to do ambigrams with authentic brush strokes. We hope you like our new feature and would love to hear your feedback!

- Nelson Chu 2018.11

P.S. 中國大陸把 Ambigram 譯成‘對稱字’，但其實Ambigram  不一定‘對稱’。Ambigram   的前 部ambi  應該有   ambiguous的意思，就是   暧昧、 含糊、  雙關 等意思。Gram 有‘圖’或‘字符’的意思。  其實我覺得Ambigram  譯作‘雙關圖’也不錯，接近我們說的‘一語雙關’，套到字圖就是‘一圖雙關’。