CHENNAI: Dan Brown novels and the films based on them are fascinating with millions of intricate mysteries hidden in signs and symbols of the old world.What is more fascinating, perhaps, are the decoding skills. But, did you know that behind this marvellous work is an art form called ‘ambigrams’? An ambigram is a typographical design or art form that may be read from more than one viewpoint or direction. The words from the other viewpoint or direction may be the same or different from the original words.However, a young designer from Coimbatore feels that ambigrams can play a greater role in day-to-day life. How? One example he cites are the display boards outside shops. An ambigram sign board can be designed such that a symbol reads in different languages that would cater to all language groups. “Tamil being an ancient language is very flexible for ambigrams. Many South Indian languages blend with Tamil,” says Gowtham.They are designed by studying the native language’s character structure. Tamil language’s superiority can be noticed by the way it amicably blends with foreign languages, thereby striking out the language barrier.” Gowtham succeeded in designing ambigrams in Tamil, but nothing fructified at the World Classical Tamil Conference held in Coimbatore, where he was asked to run from pillar to post to get a stall and display his works, that attracted close to 3,000 visitors.Citing an example of usage of multiple languages in prominent public spaces, ambigrams with proper colour coding techniques can make things simple, claims Gowtham. At a later stage, this technique can be adopted to send information in an encrypted image form for governmental intelligence and security services.Gowtham can be reached at [email protected]
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