The Blu-Ray+DVD cover of the 20th Anniversary Edition of the movie The Princess Bride features an ambigram.  The romantic comedy adventure movie, originally released in 1987, was directed and co-produced by Rob Reiner and received a rating of “two thumbs up” from Siskel & Ebert.  The text in the middle of the cover reads the same when viewed right-side-up or upside-down.  Seen here is the cover viewed one way where the lead male (Cary Elwes as Westley/Dread Pirate Roberts) and female (Robin Wright as Buttercup) cast members can be seen looking young and very much in love.

An inverted version of this cover featuring the same two individuals looking much older can be seen below.

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I remember seeing this image floating around the Internet a while back and recently stumbled across it again.  It is a really well illustrated ambiguous drawing.  Do you see Wolverine from the X-Men or two Batmen (would that be the plural of Batman?) staring at one another in front of a yellow background?

If anyone knows who the artist of this illustration is, please let me know in the comments.

Peter Kogler decorated the walls, floor and ceiling of this section of the DIRIMART Gallery in Istanbul, Turkey in 2011.  The carefully drawn lines give the impression that the entire room is somehow warped and distorted creating an uneasy feeling for anyone entering this corridor.

This photograph was taken by Atelier Kogler.

(via Peter Kogler)

This design by Malo and the Whale was submitted to Threadless as a potential candidate for a t-shirt design.  The reflection of the trees, moon, and buildings in the adjacent lake create a very interesting scene.  Do you notice unique about it?

(via Threadless)

Every now and then, some optical phenomena comes along and creates a buzz.  The current one going around the Internet is being called “What Color is this Dress?” (also known more simply as the optical illusion dress), and it is a pretty good one.  Have a quick look at the picture of the dress below… what two colors do you see on this dress?

Some people see a white and gold dress while others are seeing a blue and black dress.  Me personally, I kind of see a light blue and gold dress, so maybe I’m in a third camp here.  Whatever color this dress is, it has caused quite a stir.  I would be curious to see what colors people are seeing here, so please drop a quick comment and let me know what two colors you are seeing.

Our brains make a lot of assumptions when trying to process the color of an object.  In order to explain what is going on here, it might be helpful to look back at the color saturation illusion and the checker shadow illusion video.

Erik Johansson is an expert at using Adobe Photoshop to take real photographs and turn them into something magical.  The man on the ladder in the photograph below appears to not like the dark and dismal view of the landscape in the background.  So what does he do?  Well… instead of complaining about it, he prints out some banners of a more pleasant scene and hangs them on a wire to completely change the view.  The trick with Erik’s work is that he takes many photographs with the same perspective and lighting and is then able to merge them together such that they look like a seamless scene that could actually exist in real life.

You can view a lot more of Erik’s deceptive photographic work on his website, or have a look at Common Sense Crossing which we posted on An Optical Illusion a couple of years ago.

(via Erik Johansson)

This anamorphic octopus mural was painted by Mach505 of Truly Design at SAMO, the artistic hub of Torino, Italy.  He spent two weeks searching for the best way to break up the tentacles of the green beast in the best way possible.

Additional photographs of this painting can be found below.

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