Ambigram artist provides namesake for best-selling novels
Andrew Fiorentino
Issue date: 3/17/06 Section: News
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The life of John Langdon, a professor of graphical design in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design is represented as Robert Langdon in the novel Angels & Demons.
Langdon is "one of [his] favorite artists … who not entirely coincidentally is a passionate art-lover and a teacher like Robert Langdon," according to a March 10 University press release.
Langdon, is a pioneer in the art of ambigrams, words that can be read both normally and upside down. His namesake is also the main character The Da Vinci Code, along with the upcoming Da Vinci Code film which will be released May 19. Langdon has fashioned a career out of ambigrams and logo design, including creating the logo for the fictional Depository Bank of Zurich, which will appear in the film.
The friendship between Brown and Langdon began when Brown's father, a math teacher, bought his son Wordplay, a combination of ambigrams and essays. Brown's father eventually contacted Langdon to ask for advice on creating ambigrams of his own. Over the course of their correspondence, he called and asked if Langdon could create an ambigram of the words "Angels & Demons" for an album that his son Dan, then a singer-songwriter, was working on. Later, when Brown began his writing career, he decided to use the ambigram and gave the title "Angels & Demons" for his second book. When he decided to integrate ambigrams into the storyline, he came to his friend Langdon with the task of making ambigrams of the word "Illuminati" and the four ancient elements, separately and together.
"When Dan first named the character after me, I thought, 'Well, that's a nice honor,'" Langdon said. "I put it in the back of my mind and it didn't seem to make any difference in any way in my life, and then of course The Da Vinci Code has gotten huge."
Langdon's ambigram career has led to several branches of the arts. In November 2005, Broadway Books released a second edition of his first book, Wordplay. More recently, he has ventured into somewhat more traditional art, evolving the art of ambigrams into vivid paintings, including a striking Salvador Dali-influenced piece in honor of the painter who, along with M.C. Escher, has been Langdon's greatest artistic inspiration.
The art of the ambigram was invented, or at least rediscovered, by Langdon and Scott Kim, an independent puzzle maker designer, in the early 1970s, separately but nearly simultaneously. Langdon experimented with words, introducing themes drawn from Dali and Escher, playing with inversion symmetry, until he created his first crude ambigrams, which he has developed into an advanced art form. His ambigrams have traditionally been philosophically themed, inspired originally by Taoism and the yin and yang symbol; his first ambigram was the word "heaven."
For more information on ambigrams and Langdon's work, visit his Web site at www.johnlangdon.net.
Langdon is "one of [his] favorite artists … who not entirely coincidentally is a passionate art-lover and a teacher like Robert Langdon," according to a March 10 University press release.
Langdon, is a pioneer in the art of ambigrams, words that can be read both normally and upside down. His namesake is also the main character The Da Vinci Code, along with the upcoming Da Vinci Code film which will be released May 19. Langdon has fashioned a career out of ambigrams and logo design, including creating the logo for the fictional Depository Bank of Zurich, which will appear in the film.
The friendship between Brown and Langdon began when Brown's father, a math teacher, bought his son Wordplay, a combination of ambigrams and essays. Brown's father eventually contacted Langdon to ask for advice on creating ambigrams of his own. Over the course of their correspondence, he called and asked if Langdon could create an ambigram of the words "Angels & Demons" for an album that his son Dan, then a singer-songwriter, was working on. Later, when Brown began his writing career, he decided to use the ambigram and gave the title "Angels & Demons" for his second book. When he decided to integrate ambigrams into the storyline, he came to his friend Langdon with the task of making ambigrams of the word "Illuminati" and the four ancient elements, separately and together.
"When Dan first named the character after me, I thought, 'Well, that's a nice honor,'" Langdon said. "I put it in the back of my mind and it didn't seem to make any difference in any way in my life, and then of course The Da Vinci Code has gotten huge."
Langdon's ambigram career has led to several branches of the arts. In November 2005, Broadway Books released a second edition of his first book, Wordplay. More recently, he has ventured into somewhat more traditional art, evolving the art of ambigrams into vivid paintings, including a striking Salvador Dali-influenced piece in honor of the painter who, along with M.C. Escher, has been Langdon's greatest artistic inspiration.
The art of the ambigram was invented, or at least rediscovered, by Langdon and Scott Kim, an independent puzzle maker designer, in the early 1970s, separately but nearly simultaneously. Langdon experimented with words, introducing themes drawn from Dali and Escher, playing with inversion symmetry, until he created his first crude ambigrams, which he has developed into an advanced art form. His ambigrams have traditionally been philosophically themed, inspired originally by Taoism and the yin and yang symbol; his first ambigram was the word "heaven."
For more information on ambigrams and Langdon's work, visit his Web site at www.johnlangdon.net.
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