I'm sure no one cares, but my Avatar is from A Clockwork Orange, which is in my Top 5 for greatest movies ever. Also, the main character is a big inspiration for The Joker.

Since I've been getting a few questions about my avatar, I thought I'd answer them here, so I can link to it if necessary.

That thing is so cool!
That isn't a question, but thanks!

Do those spinny words have a real name?
They're called ambigrams.

How did I make the avatar?
The designing is done through trial and error, and finding others' work and getting inspiration from it – seeing what sort of possibilities there are. Luckily the word "magic" was pretty easy to do. The hardest part was the G.

In terms of me making the actual avatar, it starts out with me scrawling out ideas on paper. Eventually when I came up with an ambigram that looked like it said what it was supposed to, I drew it out relatively neatly in pencil.

Next I scanned it into the computer, where I opened it up in Illustrator. I traced my pencil outlines using the pen tool (luckily I only have to go half way, and then duplicate and flip it to get the whole thing).

Then I import it into Flash, where I added the other text and animated the whole thing. The hardest part was then finding the right settings that make it look good but keeping it under 24KB.

Can I learn how to make an ambigram?
As I say, most if it is down to seeing what others have done and try to apply some of their tricks they've used to your own words. Here are some links to ambigram sites:
http://www.ambigram.net/
http://ambigram.matic.com/
http://www.johnlangdon.net/
http://www.scottkim.com/inversions/
http://ceruleanstimuli.com/ambigram/

Also, check out the books "Wordplay" by John Langdon (the main inspiration for my avatar) and "Inversions" by Scott Kim.

That's pretty wicked, I also saw your "Acar/Alvo" one.

The Acar/Alvo thing was a bit of fun. I'm quite pleased how well it came out, considering the letter shapes weren't the easiest to work with. I wonder what both (*snicker*) Acar and Alvo think of it.

Woahh thats well good.

I gotta design myself one of those.

Pauldela

Hey, I loved that film!

Good old ultra-violence .

DaveV made this for me, then I added some Glitter..

Now i can't decide.. this one is from DerZauberer Ok.. I'll just swap around as the mood suits

That's really cool. It inspired me to make my own concept for the word penguin, pretty weak but it's my first go at one of these, maybe you can spiff it up?:

I thought your 'e' and 'p'-loop turning into a fat 'i' was quite interesting. Haven't seen it done before in ambigrams, but it works.

Here's my attempt. I'm not liking the 'p'-'n' all that much, but it's the best I can do with limited time.

Well my avatar is a picture of me lying down on my bed, But the bed was cut off!
P.S: I always keep an Ace of Spades under my hat, Kind of like a trademark sort of thing.

"Think of any card. Ace of spades? No that is too easy, I always keep that one under may hat."

i have a corn avatar

LOL! The corn!

im tryin to setup my avatar but it keeps on sayin that it must be smaller than 24 KB how do i change that?!?!? plz help