Ambigrammia

On the history and creation of ambigrams, by a pioneer of the practice

In the 1960s and 1970s, a trio of creative individuals independently discovered that ordinary words and phrases could be given double readings by playfully distorting the letters composing them. These doubly readable words and phrases, if designed by an artistic eye and hand, could be things of great visual beauty. Douglas R. Hofstadter named these calligraphic illustrations "ambigrams" in 1983, and over the decades he has designed thousands, as have his friends Scott Kim and John Langdon, the other pioneers of the subtle art form he calls ambigrammia. This book presents a collection of hundreds of Hofstadter's ambigrams, along with a few dozen by Kim, Langdon, and others.

With deep links to cognitive science, Ambigrammia provides examples of many types of ambigrams and shows how the art form can be extended in surprising directions. Along the way, Hofstadter discusses the nature of creativity and its alter ego, "discoverativity," and shows how the "pocket-sized creativity puzzles" that make up ambigrammia are pervaded by these complementary qualities. The text is also notable for its autobiographical character: Hofstadter recounts how his own life has been intimately intertwined with his creation/discovery of ambigrams in many countries and in many languages.