Hello my friend, it’s nice to see you again. Tell me what you read here.

Hey Vassilis, nice to see you too. I read ‘shape’.

Good. Is there anything else that you can read in this image?

No. It’s just ‘shape’.

I agree. Now, what do you read here?

Prey. What sort of test is this?

You’ll see in a moment. Now, what do you read here?

Oh! It’s ‘prey’ again. But this ‘e’ is an upside-down ‘a’. It’s also ‘pray’.

You’re right my friend! Can you explain what happened here?

The shape of the ‘e’ looks like an ‘a’ upside down.

Correct. It is the case that some letters have forms that are distinguishable even if they are rotated, or reflected. By the way, this is called double-storey ‘a’.

Now, going back to the first image, remember that it reads only ‘shape’? Here it is, again.

Yes.

Now, here’s a point. We both know that a ‘p’ is an upside down ‘d’. Can you read ‘shade’ in this picture?

No. Well, if we rotate ‘p’, it will become ‘shade’. But as it is, it’s just ‘shape’.

You’re right, ‘p’ has a stable position. It stands as a letter as it is. Whereas, in the previous image, the upside-down double-storey ‘a’ does not. Here it is, again.

This ‘a’ has this exact feature. It can be read as an ‘e’, but hey! This is not a normal ‘e’. We get that it’s actually an upside-down ‘a’. Thus, we also read ‘pray’.

Which leads me to present to you…

   Stableshift ambigrams 

Many letters have unique shapes and lend themselves to be read as a different letter when rotated or reflected. Let’s see some other examples.

That’s lovely. And lonely.

Correct. Here’s another one.

It’s yell. In hell. Can we make the ‘y’ taller? It would probably help readability.

We could do it, yes. But it would not be just a stableshift ambigram if we did. I will get back to this comment in a future episode.

Stableshift ambigrams require no change in the letter forms. We just get the stable version of the letter, and we shift it.

Oh! I get it V. Are there more examples of these?

Of course! Here are some more that I made.

That’s a ‘we’-‘me’.

Yes. But did you know you don’t necessarily have to rotate letters by 180°? Here’s an example:

It’s a wiz. And a win. That’s a 90° turn. Nice!

You can try it, my friend. Give it a go! Be brave, my friend! Hey, here’s another one!

Hehe, that’s a brave move, indeed.

Here’s a braver one.

He’s just suave… Oh! Just shave.

Well, maybe if we just shave, we’ll be as suave as him. Who knows? Hey, you know why this u-h stableshift glyph works?

Why?

Normally, an inverted ‘h’ is a ‘y’. But there is no word such as ‘syave’. If that was the case, we could just read ‘syave’ and nothing more. Just like the ‘shape’ example in the beginning. So, since the word ‘syave’ does not exist, you read ‘suave’. And then you wonder why’s that tail longer… it’s like an upside down ‘h’. Hey! It’s ‘shave’. Just shave, my friend!

But you know what? Stableshift ambigrams can work with reflections, too.

Can you show me an example?

Here it is.

Oh! A dose… of a doze?

That’s right! Now go, my friend! Create awesome art! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

I will definitely give it a try V. In which sub-category of mind ambigrams do stableshifts belong?

Here’s the map without stableshifts. Where do you think they belong?

Hmmm… in the interpretation part?

Absolutely! Stableshifts have nothing to do with focusing on a different part of the images. They have to do with interpreting the stable position of the displayed unstable one. Here’s the map again, with those included.

It looks like there are a lot of mind ambigram types out there.

Indeed. And this green horizon is my favourite one. We’ll see more types here in the future. It always amazes me how just a single image can show two words at once. It’s a miracle!

Yes, I believe so…

And that’s it for today. I hope this chapter inspired you to create your own miraculous pieces, my friend…

See you in the next one!

Hey there. Let me know what stableshift pieces you create. Drop a message at [email protected].

Have a blessed day, my friend.