Ambigrams!!!

Thanks to the few people brave enough to rant about a bad job experience on my blog. I received many more to my email from brave souls who just didn't want to chance being outted on the internet. I promise you will all remain anonymous! And anonymous user posted this gem: www.notalwaysright.com A collection of customer service gone wrong. It has kept me in stitches since it was posted. Thanks, anonymous!
But the winner of my mini contest is...Esoterica! Thanks for the post! Please email me your preference - vice of your choice, or dinner date with me! (I know what I'm hoping for!)

And now for the long awaited post of ambigrams! You know, those uber clever designs that look the same front to back, or flipped left to right or upside down. They're like pallindromes, which I am also obsessed.
There are so many more. Rock band logos are very famous ambigrams. ABBA, Aerosmith, Blacksmith, Nine Inch Nails to name a few. And corporate logos like Xpedx, New Man, Edge, Truce Vodka, Delaurean, Wachova just to name a few. Tom Hanks helped bring ambigrams back in vogue with The Davinchi Code and the Oh-So-Mysterious secret society the Illuminati and their Oh-So-Mysterious logo that's (gasp!) the same EVEN WHEN YOU FLIP IT UPSIDE DOWN! And when they made the second movie Angels and Demons, they just had to do a repeat performance. I spoke to a tattoo artist who has tattooed this logo more than any single other design. Wow. Favorite ambigram subjects are like Yin and Yang. Opposite sides to a whole. Life and Death. True and False. Love and Marriage (ha, I'm just kidding, it's actually Love and Hate) War and Peace, Trick and Treat, Yes and No. And pairings of words that go together. Like Hope and Faith. Peace and Love. Graphic designer John Langdon (http://www.johnlangdon.net/) has made a career of designing logos that are ambigrams, and for a nice fee will design one for you (very often for weddings). It's one of the most difficult thigs for a graphic designer to do, and I've often questioned why. To make words perfectly symmetrical, you have to add so much "extra" stuff like flourishes, or use text that's harder to read, and to me, the message of who the company is gets lost in the wow factor. But any business owner may tell you that anything that gets you remembered is a good thing. I tried for weeks to make my name into an ambigram. Shouldn't be too hard - my name is very nearly symmetrical as it is. But, I've run out of time and patience, and couldn't wait another minute to post this entry. Sorry!
So rather than listing out each graphic, and talking about it, I'll just post my favorites here. They're self explanatory. I'd love to have more pictures, but my blog just isn't playing nice. And at the end, a wonderful example of ambigrams in real life. It's one of my favorite movies, and the cover contains one of my favorite design elements.
Happy designing!

To Blog or Not To Blog...

That is the question. Truly. I've been a bad, bad blogger and I apologize. My goal was to write once a week. And even though I've been insanely busy, I actually HAVE been writing once a week. Not necessarily publishing it, however. Especially since a lot of what I've written has the tone of an exasperated five year old. Mostly because I'm crazy busy with my largest craft project ever (my print shop). And also because what I've been writing is not really craft or design related. That shouldn't really matter since this is craft ANARCHY where there are no rules. But still. I'm a bad, bad blogger.

I've piqued your curiosity with suggestions of blog entries such as:
Alana's Font Rant
Ambigram Candygram!
MORE Logomania
Wedding Invitation BLISS
Nerdy Valentines
And MORE! (And they're coming! I promise!)

I've teased you with wonderful posts, only to disappear for two weeks with no explanation, and no cool posts like Michelle Wieler's post about her travel contest.
SHAMELESS PLUG - go visit her blog and then go VOTE for goodness sake!

Mitch_travelbug's Submitted Video - Travel Contest | BestTravelJobEver.com

And yes, I've been doing a great number of wedding invitations, which have all turned out fantastically. I've taken pictures of all of them, and they WILL be ready to blog about soon. But a few brides have left me in tears. I'm on redesign #3 with one bride. I'm ready for desperate measures on this one. Any ideas on how to deal with difficult clients?

But with all that going on, and things at the shop going quite mental (or they're making me mentally exhausted at least). We actually have customers hanging out at the shop A FULL HOUR before we open and TWO HOURS after we close - all expecting service! They've apparently been stalking us and know when we come and go. Hey people! I love you all, but do you know the reason we're here two hours after closing time? Because we need to get stuff DONE!

I know I'm sounding like a five year old again - I warned you about that earlier. But rather than continuing this wonderful (and much needed rant) I wanna know what YOU think:
How do you deal with a difficult client? Ones that pushes the boundaries of respect. Ones that expect return emails past eleven o'clock at night. Ones that come in hours before open, and hours after closing. Customers that give impossible direction for an impossible job, or completely redesign the whole entire thing eight times before cancelling the job altogether. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

Write to me your favorite work related disaster story, or how you dealt wonderfully with a really difficult client and how it turned out fabulously in the end. I'm tired of hearing myself whine, and goodness knows you need a rant once in a while!

The BEST story or incident to be posted here will receive:
- My most sincere condolences and or congratulations
- A deep understanding of where you're coming from
- A drink-date with ME! Live and in person! (Or if you're far away, I'll courier you out your most favorite vice, be it candy, chocolate, coffee etc)
- The glorious prize of having your own personal rant on my blog for all to see (okay, everyone will have that, but it's still special, right?)

Entries will close whenever I do my next post. Good luck to all, and rant away!