[HN Gopher] Ambigr.am
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Ambigr.am
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 215 points
Date : 2025-10-05 04:11 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ambigr.am)
(TXT) w3m dump (ambigr.am)
| colesantiago wrote:
| The Sun Microsystems logo is one of the most famous (and my
| personal favorite) ambigram logos.
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SUN_microsystems_log...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| :-O
|
| TIL or rather today I _saw_ the letters there for the first
| time. Just thought it was S 's all these years! Nice one
| merelysounds wrote:
| Interestingly, rotational ambigrams can also occur naturally,
| e.g. "OHIO":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambigram#/media/File%3AAmbigra...
| emil-lp wrote:
| Related: Ambigrammia
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44692118
| 0wis wrote:
| Interesting site ! There is something playful in the idea of
| ambigrams that I can't explain. Maybe something like a puzzle ?
|
| A nice project could be to automate a generator. It must be quite
| hard because it feels like a mix between a Captcha and an AI
| hallucination but made right. The << glyph >> search part of the
| site is maybe the best asset to start with a database of possible
| matches.
| ares623 wrote:
| Building one is definitely a puzzle. And trying to read it
| upside down/flipped without actually flipping it is also a kind
| of puzzle (i.e. like trying to run a compilation in your head,
| trying to see in your mind first before "running"/"compiling"
| the program).
|
| They're also like the made-up language from the movie Arrival.
| You kind of need to know the end and the beginning at the same
| time.
|
| I wonder how good GenAI is in generating ambigrams. I know
| they're very good in generating those visual illusions of
| having a face in a landscape. Perhaps that can be the next
| "Pelican test" once the Pelican test has been completely
| absorbed in training.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Image Diffusion models are already capable of this. There was a
| research paper and I believe model was released as well, which
| ch generates visual illusions where an image when flipped
| becomes something else.
|
| Same idea here. A text needs to be diffused from two views
| until it looks the same but still matches the input. It might
| already exist.
|
| Edit: https://diffusionillusions.com/
|
| Edit: Ambigram using Diffusion models https://raymond-
| yeh.com/AmbiGen/
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| Ha! that was my first dumb idea when i read about your problem as
| well. Amazing that it actually worked
| yreg wrote:
| Maybe it's not possible for all character pairs, but we could
| have a font-face with plenty of possible pairs and render them as
| ligatures.
|
| AD -> render an A that looks like a D when viewed upside down
|
| DA -> render the same character in the other orientation
|
| Then to use the font you need to carefully construct palindromes
| out of the supported pairs. Of course copy-pasting this would be
| a pita, accessibility would be non-existent, but could be fun for
| print and such.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| This is a cool idea!
| Ruphin wrote:
| One of my favorite ambigrams is the title logo from an old 1995
| PC game classic, Tyrian. It's so subtle I never realised until a
| few years ago.
|
| You can find the logo here, along with the excellent soundtrack:
| https://alexanderbrandon.bandcamp.com/album/tyrian-original-...
| yoz-y wrote:
| I've played and finished that game a dozen times and never
| realized this! Thanks!
| tantalor wrote:
| Broken website? Just spins forever.
| 65 wrote:
| Ambigrams are a random useless talent I have. I'm able to write
| backwards and upside down as well for whatever reason. I
| hypothesized it's because I'm left handed.
| schoen wrote:
| That's usually called "mirror writing", but it's a different
| concept. If you look closely at these examples, you'll see that
| the letter forms are carefully chosen so that the texts are
| _still readable as normal_ under symmetry (unlike regular
| text).
|
| This is done by creating letter forms that can be interpreted
| as _other_ letter forms under symmetry, similar to the u and n
| being interpreted as each other 's inverted forms. These
| ambigrammists are making designs in which more pairs of letters
| have that kind of relationship.
| jonah wrote:
| I was first introduced to Ambigrams many years ago when Scott Kim
| was working on some game projects with one company I was at and
| then did the logo for another company.
|
| https://www.scottkim.com/ambigrams
|
| https://www.scottkim.com/blog/categories/ambigrams
| spankalee wrote:
| I really don't understand this site. What is it?
| azundo wrote:
| Ambigrams can be read right side up and rotated by 180 degrees
| (sometimes other rotations also exist). Some of the ones here
| say the same thing when turned, and some say a different,
| usually related, word or phrase.
| spankalee wrote:
| Now the site makes sense. There was no content on it before
| and no explanation of what the site was. Just a leader board
| with this AM logo thing...
|
| Edit: well, on reload, it's blank again.
| sert_121 wrote:
| is this supposed to be feed only for ambigrams? or more of a
| contest?
| desireco42 wrote:
| I love the idea but I love the site design even more. So
| refreshing to see something like this. Simple yet original.
| becomevocal wrote:
| For a few years, many many years ago, I helped build the sites
| for wowtattoos.com and redchapterclothing.com which uses the
| artwork of Mark Palmer. He's the real deal! Awesome person too
|
| Back in 2008-ish the site could generate ambigrams for you too.
| It was powered by an algo that pieced together a large set of
| hand drawn glyphs. PHP at it's best :D
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20080730222127/http://www.wowtat...
| hackerbeat wrote:
| By the way, I love https://wordgag.com/ - brings me a lot of joy
| everyday.
| cwmoore wrote:
| up
|
| dn
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