When flipped, they remain unchanged, or they mutate to reveal another meaning. Most often, ambigrams appear as visually symmetrical words. The term was coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1983–1984. Most ambigrams are visual palindromes that rely on some kind of symmetry, and they can often be interpreted as visual puns. Symmetrical calligraphic or typographic design that has multiple interpretations Animation of a half-turn ambigram of the word ambigram, with 180-degree rotational symmetry Īn ambigram is a calligraphic composition of glyphs (letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes) that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation.
