Containment ambigrams 

What are they, Vassilis?

I’ll show you one and you’ll see what it is. This piece is called “true-false”, designed by Scott Kim.

Oh, I can see that! Is it like the “true” is inside the “false”?

Not exactly inside, but “true” is a part of “false”. Part of ‘F’ forms the ‘t’. Parts of ‘AL’ form the ‘ru’ and part of ‘S’ forms the ‘e’. Thus, focusing on the bottom left part of the image, the viewer reads the contained word, hence the naming.

So, the coloured part reveals the second word. Clever!

It is clever, indeed. But it’s not the colour that makes it work. You can see that this piece works in just black and white as well, but colour is added to make it easier to read.

Can you see it?

Having seen the original image, I can see it. But if I’d seen this image first, I don’t know that I’d have found “true”.

That’s why containment ambigrams are usually shown with two colours. Here’s another piece by Jeffry Manansala, it’s “mirror illusions”.

That’s a great piece of art. I see that here, the second word takes up the whole bottom half.

Yes, it does. In fact, the second word, the contained one, can either be formed by a continuous part of the first word (i.e. bottom , bottom-left, top-right etc.) or by parts here and there. Look at this piece by Otto Kronstedt, it’s called “hyper-space”.

Oh yes, I get it. I like this type of ambigrams. It’s completely different from middle-forms and figure-grounds.

I like these as well! So, here are the types of ambigrams in the mind category.

It’s so nice that people have invented such mind-blowing ways of presenting two words as a single, static image!

I’m amazed as well! But after exploring these containment pieces, I felt somehow stuck.

Why V?

Because most people are only aware of these three types of mind ambigrams. Does our journey to this green horizon end here? I feel there must be more. But then, hwhere do we go from here? How do we search for another ambigram type is this category? Can we possibly invent a new type of mind ambigram? We must find a way to structure our thoughts. This journey should not end right here.

So, is there a way?

Did you see that I said I “felt” stuck and not “feel”? That’s because it turns out there is a way! We should organise the types according to the function that our brain carries out. Can you guess what these functions are? Look at the mind category again.

Hm… I’m not sure.

In a middle-form, the viewer can interpret a letterform in two ways. In a figure-ground, the viewer must change his perception from reading black-on-white to white-on-black. In a containment ambigram, the user focuses on some part(s) of the image. With the first two ones, the viewer interprets, while with the last one, the viewers focuses.

Using that, it is a huge step to re-draw the mind category as below:

Why do you say it’s a huge step?

Because, the first step is always a huge step. From now on, we’ll not just try to magically find the next mind ambigram. Instead, we’ll be figuring out how many ways can our mind can possibly focus on something, or what does it even mean to interpret something, what do we always take for granted (i.e. as black-on-white) that we can change, or what different brain functions are there yet for us to expore. 

So, where are we heading now?

We’ll make a dive into interpretation ambigrams. Specifically, I’ll grab the opportunity from figure-grounds, where the standard black-on-white gets hit in the face, and do it in other standards of typography. Are you ready?

What other standard are you thinking of? Drop a message at [email protected]

If, on the other hand, you are not thinking of something but want to be part of this journey, write you name and email below and some day you’ll get a gift on your inbox.