# Left and right are not the same decision twice

> The same coiled serpent is drawn twice and mirrored across an oat tee, labelled L and R — and mirroring turns out not to be neutral, because almost nothing is truly symmetrical.

August 20, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-side-you-choose

The same coiled serpent, drawn twice, sits either side of a wide gap down the centre of the chest. Left and
right are labelled underneath: L, R. Same coils, same scale, same line weight — except the left one faces
inward and the right is its exact mirror.

Pick one and the choice isn't between two designs. It's between two versions of the same one.

## Why does a design need a side at all?

Because most of the reasons people pick left or right have nothing to do with the drawing.

Which hand does the work, which side faces the room you sit in most, which arm shows first when a sleeve
gets pushed up — none of that is decided by the serpent. It's decided before the serpent is ever chosen,
and the drawing just has to arrive at whichever side that reasoning points to.

## Does mirroring the same drawing really change anything?

Yes, because almost no drawing is actually symmetrical, even when it looks like it should be.

A coiled serpent has a direction its head faces and a direction its body winds — clockwise reads differently
from anticlockwise, and a head turned inward toward the centre of the chest reads differently from one
turned out toward the shoulder. Flip the file and every one of those relationships flips with it. Two
"identical" prints can sit on two different sides and genuinely be two different compositions, not one
composition worn twice.

## What actually decides which side people pick?

Ordinary, practical things, mostly. Which arm does the reaching in day-to-day work. Which side a rolled
sleeve tends to show. Which side faces whoever you're usually talking to across a desk or a table.

None of that is dramatic, and it doesn't need to be. Nobody has to justify a side to anyone, and most
people asked why they picked one will give an answer about their hands or their habits, not a reason that
sounds like it belongs on a chest at all. Handedness is that category of decision: not about meaning, about
use, arrived at the same way most people choose which wrist wears a watch.

## Who owns a coiled serpent, or the choice of which side it's on?

Nobody owns either one. A coiled serpent is a classic subject, redrawn for as long as this vocabulary has
existed, and it belongs to no single artist any more than [a panther crawling low across a
chest](/stories/panther-crawling-diagonal) does — both come off the same open shelf.

A side is even less ownable than the subject. Nobody can claim "the right side" the way nobody can claim
a colour. What a specific artist can own is their own particular drawing — this coil, this line weight,
this exact turn of the head — the same as with any other subject in the catalogue.

## Does the side matter for every design, or only ones with an obvious direction?

Only for designs that have a direction to begin with.

A perfectly round emblem or a motif built dead centre on itself has no left or right to speak of — mirror
it and you get the same image back. The serpent has a side because its head, its coil and its taper all
point somewhere. [The same is true of a mark built around a fixed job, like the one worn under a
collar](/stories/the-job-stopper) — direction only matters where the drawing has one.

## Doesn't a joint that bends change the side question too?

It changes what a side can survive, which is a related but separate question.

A design chosen for the inner elbow or the back of the knee has to hold its shape [when the joint closes as
well as when it's flat](/stories/where-the-body-bends), and that constraint applies whichever side it's
on. Handedness decides which side; the joint decides what kind of drawing can go there at all.

## Does it print well?

Yes, and mirroring costs nothing in the printing itself. A flipped file is still flat colour with hard
edges — the ink separation, the line weight and the fill are identical whichever way the artwork faces.

What's worth checking before printing is anything with actual text worked into the coil, since a mirrored
letterform reads as wrong in a way a mirrored curve never does. A purely graphic subject like this serpent
has no such trap — it prints the same either way, which is exactly what makes it safe to mirror at all.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the subject and which side at [JustOG](/) — the direction it should face, and which arm or side of
the chest. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to
order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Two versions of one drawing, side by side, only so you can see the difference before you pick one.