The editor who wanted to publish my ambigrams seemed to think that a book needed text as well, so I dragged my writer self out of the closet, and Wordplay was published in 1992 by Broadway Books,” he said. “In the early 70s, I tried to do with words what Dali and Escher did with images, I invented (or discovered) what came to be known as ‘ambigrams.’ In 1980, I discovered that Scott Kim had invented them, too, almost at the same time. Fascination with the yin and yang symbol was what sparked Langdon’s interest to start manipulating fonts and scripts in order to make art from words.

“In a sense, I invented them without setting out to do so,” he said. Langdon has been creating ambigrams for more than 30 years. Several of John’s ambigrams were put to use around the set by the crew, including Hank’s off-camera set location and the official “Angels & Demons” bike.

Langdon was invited to the “Angels & Demons” set in the summer of 2008 and watched as Hanks and director Howard brought Robert Langdon to life. Brown also asked Langdon to create a logo for the Depository Bank of Zurich that appeared in “The DaVinci Code” film. Brown was amazed at Langdon’s ability to play with words and called the Philadelphia native to compliment him. On the acknowledgments page, Brown calls Langdon “one of the most ingenious and gifted artists alive… who rose brilliantly to my impossible challenge and created ambigrams for this novel.” Langdon’s relationship with the best-selling author began when Brown’s father bought him a copy of Wordplay, Langdon’s book of ambigrams. Brown first used one of Langdon’s ambigrams as the Angels & Demons title on the cover of the first edition. An ambigram connecting all four words, the “Illuminati Diamond” that appeared in the Angels & Demons novel may play a part in the film as well. In addition to the Illuminati ambigram itself, Langdon’s earth, air, fire and water ambigrams appear on the splash page of the film’s Web site. Five of Langdon’s illuminati ambigrams play an integral part in Robert Langdon’s adventure into the Illuminati network. The follow up to the international blockbuster “The DaVinci Code” features Langdon’s ambigrams, which were first seen by the public in Brown’s novel, Angels and Demons, published in 2000.

John Langdon, who, not by coincidence, shares the same last name as the film’s protagonist played by Tom Hanks, has been creating ambigrams - words that can be read from left to right, upside down or from multiple viewpoints - since the 1970s. All those symbols flashing in Web site promos and posters promoting Ron Howard’s new film “Angels & Demons,” based on the novel by Dan Brown, were created by a professor of typography at Drexel University.

Angels & demons dan brown