Eye Twisters: Ambigrams & Other Visual Puzzles to Amaze and Entertain

by Burkard Polster

Just imagine a place in which things turned upside down are still right-side up, where the laws of nature as we know them are suspended, ignored, or even expanded. That’s the fantastic universe of Eye Twisters , which features incredible ambigrams—calligraphic designs that have not just one, but two interpretations at once. Though these visual conundrums have existed for years, they were virtually unknown until recently, when John Langdon—who provided the foreword here—created some superb examples for Dan Brown’s bestselling novel Angels & Demons . In addition to a history of the form, and suggestions for ambigram spotting in the natural world, this magnificent compilation showcases a variety from several masters of the style, including M.C. Escher, Scott Kim, Gustave Verbeek, Rob Gonsalves, and many more.

236 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Burkard Polster is a maths lecturer, and Monash University's resident Mathemagician, mathematical juggler, origami expert, bubble-master, shoelace charmer, and Count von Count impersonator. When he is not doing fun mathematics he has fun investigating perfect mathematical universes.

from http://www.mav.vic.edu.au/public-lect...

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up thinking it would be images that could be perceived as one of two objects depending on the viewer, such as the one that is either an old witch or a young girl. Well, there are some visual examples like that classic, but this is mainly about wordplay -- for example, flip a word upside down and it may either read the same or say something totally different.

p. 173 explains, Most ambigram artists would agree that a good ambigram should be readable, attractive and ideally reflect some of the meaning of the word it represents.

There are lots of examples, and a 'Do It Yourself' section that would have appealed to me in my high school years when I was playing around with artistic lettering.

I particularly enjoyed some of the non-word images. Rob Gonsalves illustrated several books using this type of visual 'trickery.' See, for example, the cover of the book Imagine a Night.

[Lyle Blosser · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the concept of ambigrams and "reversible" font and art was initially intriguing I found the many examples and details that followed to be a bit overwhelming and mind-numbing, in the end. It all began to feel a bit forced; briefly entertained but not really amazed.