Erin E. Sullivan's Blog

I am currently taking a class that is labeled “Experimental and Illustrative Typography” which explores the creation of typefaces and using type to create dynamic work. For one of the assignments, I had to create a design concept that is influenced by a typographic style movement that dates before the year 1980. This was the perfect opportunity for me to explore a very difficult typographic style that I have always had interest in creating ever since reading Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons: Ambigrams. This project obviously was not easy.

Step 1: Research

To begin this assignment, I had to do research because I did not have any previous experience in designing ambigrams. Luckily my professor was able to help me out by forwarding me two very helpful websites:

• Ambiblog
• “Typographic Doppelgängers” by John Langdon

I read through them and studied all of the images that were posted on these two sites. While studying the images, I have noticed that many of these ambigrams have a blackletter look to them so I kept that in mind.

Step 2: Thinking… And a lot of it

When I decided that I was going to go forward with the project, I had to figure out what word I wanted to spell out. In my head I went through the letters of the alphabet and grouped together those that look similar or have a very good possibility of looking similar after careful manipulation (because in the end one letter has to match its opposite letter when rotated):

• A – B – H
• B – E – F – G – H – K – P – R
• C – D – G – J – O – Q – S – U – V
• I – J – L – T – Y
• M – N – V – W – X – Y – Z
• S – Z
• a – b – d – g – h – p – q
• c – e – o
• f – h – t
• i – j – l – t
• k – x
• m – n – r – u – v – w – y
• s – z

Of course all of these letter groupings can vary depending on the overall look of the ambigram, but this was just a general observation.

After going through the alphabet, I tried to think of my word. Since this was my first ambigram, I had to remind myself that the word must stay simple, preferably a one-syllable word. After running through ideas in my head and becoming frustrated for failing to come up with a word, I cursed at myself and thought “creating an ambigram is a bitch!”

A light shined.

Step 3: To the drawing board

Well… Not really the drawing board, but to Adobe Illustrator. I did not have any patience to draw in my sketchbook which would then be drawn again with my Wacom tablet. But, remember when I noticed that many of the ambigrams looked like they were in a blackletter style? What I did is I went through all of the blackletter typefaces that were available on the computer being used (Linotext™ Std, San Marco™ Std, Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch™ Std, and Wittenberger Fraktur™ Std), and started to pair up the rotations of the word.

Linotext™ Std

San Marco™ Std

Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch™ Std

Wittenberger Fraktur™ Std

I was sold on basing my ambigram off of Linotext™ Std due to its legibility and having the most similarity between the five letters used out of the four typefaces I tested with. What I also like about the typeface is that the “i” already has serifs coming out that can almost look like a “c”, so I felt like using this typeface was a good way to start. Then came the evolution of my ambigram:

So after much thinking and careful planning, I started from a blackletter typeface and turned it into an ambigram that has color and more of a tribal look to it, thus making it my own unique design.

"BitcH" ambigram from start to finish.

I do not read much, but I will read Dan Brown’s books. Thanks to reading Angels & Demons I have now been inspired to explore through a typographical design movement that is very complicated and challenging to begin with, which I have successfully accomplished in doing.