Mighty Optical Illusions » ambigram

Top 10 Optical Illusion Tattoos

Jill Harness — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:14:02 +0000

I don’t know about you guys, but I love top ten lists. When Vurdlak asked me if i could do one, I was really excited and a little surprised to see that there are only two top-tens on the site already. Well, rest assured that if you like posts like this, I’ll be happy to contribute plenty of them to the site -in fact, if you have any ideas for lists you’d like to see, feel free to leave your ideas in the comments here and if Vurdlak and I both like them, you just might see them in an upcoming post!

As for this first top ten list, I thought tattoos would make a great topic -after all, you have to really love an illusion to get one tattooed on you. This first tattoo is my personal favorite because it’s such a classic illusion subject -multiple meaning one. These work really well as arm tattoos because you never know if someone will view it while your arm is raised or not, making it the ideal location for such a piece. This specific design was done by David Page. On the left, you have a queen, but when you flip her upside down, you have a king.

Next, the skull illusion tattoo involves one of my favorite types of illusions. What’s so great about skull illusions? Let’s face it, they’re just so cool! It’s also a great idea for a tattoo since skulls are one of the most classic tattoo designs, but this interpretation brings the concept from cliche to chic.

Here’s another excellent skull illusion tattoo, this one involving two clowns holding hands while drinking. The tattoo, by Kate Hoogland, just might contain the most romantic skull illusion I have ever seen.

On the right, we have a brilliant rendition of M.C. Escher’s Drawing Hands illusion. The piece, done by Cheryl Volling, has some absolutely stunning shading, giving it the life-like appearance of the original Escher drawing.

This ambigram tattoo is great in that it incorporates some of the most important aspects of philosophy into an ambigram. It’s also particularly nice in that it is easy to read and doesn’t look strange from either direction, which is one of the hardest aspects in making an ambigram.

This saint/sinner ambigram is also easy to read, but rather than focusing on the arts and sciences, it focuses on religion. I think it really seems to denote the true duality of man.

Here’s another cool religious optical illusion, albeit in a a totally different style. If you don’t see the illusion, just back up a few more inches and then you’ll see that the image comes together to make the face and beard of Jesus.

On the right is another Escher tattoo, this one is on Flickr user’s alan.maia profile and features fish transforming into birds (and vice-versa) artwork. Maybe it’s just me, but I really love how worried that last fish in the tattoo looks.

We’ve featured a few of Del-Prete’s illusions before, but this impossible object tattooed on Flickr user bonstance and seen in the book Masters of Deception is still new.

Here’s a great tattoo with a double meaning. Is it a face or a cartoonish man playing saxophone?

Bonus: While it’s little anamorphic, this one might not technically be an illusion. Even so, the details are amazing enough to make it looks completely realistic.

Now, before I sign off, I thought I’d ask you guys about your own tattoos. After all, if you’re a regular reader of Moillusions.com, you just might be the type of person who’s willing to get an illusion tattoo. So, do any of you have illusion tattoos? And if you do, do you have any links to the pictures online? I know I’m not the only one who’d love to see them.

Also, I’m a big fan of giving credit where it’s due, so if you know who did any of the tattoos that aren’t labeled, please leave their names in the comments. Thanks guys!

Ambigrams & Upside Down Heads

Jill Harness — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:43:23 +0000

Sam Saxton has a bit of a gift, he can not only visualize how to make just about any word into an ambigram, meaning it can be read right side up or upside down, he also knows how to draw people with that same technique. The result is a series of celebrities, historical figures, even Star Wars characters and superheros that can be read and visualized from either direction.

While my personal favorite is this clean and easy to read Washington picture, the entire gallery is certainly worth a look.

Double Reflection Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Sat, 14 May 2011 23:53:09 +0000

As always, Francis Tabary keeps on amazing us with his creative works of art. This time he came up with such a clever ambigram, one that works in a way I never thought would be possible! What Francis managed to pull off, he designed an object of such formation that when mirrored horizontally forms a readable word, and when you further vertically-mirror this whole word, you get to see a whole new meaning. As simple as the resulting photo appears, think how hard it must have been forming two words just by writing upper half of the first one? Like we said, half of the word ONDE is reflected in a horizontally-positioned mirror, which makes the entire word. ONDE is then reflected in a vertical mirror, resulting with ECHO ambigram. Now if I only knew French…

“Illusions en Miroir” by F. Tabary

Vurdlak — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:05:58 +0000

The master Yoda when it comes to illusions, more precisely mr. Francis Tabary once again sent some some of his marvelous ambigram creations! The Illusions en Miroir, one you’re about to see, shows how “easy” appears to read both orientations of the same writing differently. When it comes to ambigrams, the pioneers in this field are Scott Kim and Douglas Hofstadter, but you may find many other authors if you look well enough. As Tabary states, ambigrams can effectively be used in advertising, and when designed as sculptures, they add to the element of magic and ambivalence.

Black & White Anagram/Ambigram

Vurdlak — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:20:58 +0000

I’ve asked you on numerous occasions, and you explained it to me even more times than I asked, yet I can’t seem to remember if this type of illusion belongs to anagram or ambigram section. I remember the difference between these two, yet can’t distinguish which one does what. I’m sure many of you will ask why don’t you simply google it?, but as I explained many times – I prefer reading your comments, giving me opportunity to enjoy different-angled comments and somehow makes me feel more connected to you guys. Anyway, check out the anagram/ambigram below, and see what you can come up with!

Wordplay Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:29:48 +0000

Alert! I’m slowly running out of quality optical illusions. There is “submit illusion” link at the footer of this site, but I think I’ll add another, more prominent button somewhere at the top. The problem with user submissions is that very often the photo submitted is too much blurry, illusion it holds is not so great, or it simply misses explanation. Hope this improves over time as you learn what kind of illusions pass my quality check. In short, our audience prefers optical illusions that are visually appealing, and contain quality optical illusion. Today I give you very simple, yet appealing example. Can you spot the optical illusion it holds only by yourself? As you see, this image is very simple, and the illusion it contains is somewhat “hard” to see at the beginning. Keep sending good stuff, and your submissions will appear momentarily!

Be carefull, there just might be more than one answer to this illusion!

Cleverest Stupid-Girl Arround

Vurdlak — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:51:24 +0000

Update - I just learned that the artist behind this is Nagfa, you can find another interesting photo on his blog that works in a simmilar fashion.

Wait a minute... What?

I forgot to post the newest optical illusion yesterday, which I hope you shall forgive me. What I was doing instead, I was playing with some universal widget creating tools. I’ve added my result at the bottom of my sidebar, so you may check what I managed to compile. Nothing revolutionary really, just something you can easily add to your website, blog, etc. If you wish, you may try it. You can see the separate page here. Now let me dig up something illusionary for today. Ah! Found it. The idea behind today’s optical illusion is very similar to the Love & Hate illusion from 2006. The shirt this girl is wearing has the ambigram printed, which can be understood in two different ways. I’m still not exactly sure whether ambigram shows the different meanings, or an anagram does this (one of them shows the same word from each direction). Still, the result is cute. But the question remains: would you ever wear a t-shirt that claims you are stupid?

Want this universal widget? Get it!

As I explained before, this new widget brings nothing revolutionary to this site. Still, it may serve as a nice addition to your website or blog. It will serve newest optical illusions to your visitors. Even if you have no inspiration on a particular day, and miss posting new content – your readers will remain occupied with some fresh content on our your site. Use it freely as you wish, its free.

I would also like to inform you that I’ll be leaving for my summer vacation at the beginning of July. Rest assured though, I will continue to publish new stuff daily, only from different location (same each summer). In times when broadband internet is available in almost each corner of the world, running a website remotely is becoming pretty easy.