“In The Lost Symbol and Inferno Robert Langdon just seems like an observer, I think the character has become less fresh and exciting.
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“I liked Digital Fortress a lot, Deception Point was really weak, Angels and Demons was really terrific and The Da Vinci Code was pretty darn good. What John Langdon thinks about the books and films “I owned the copyrights to the ambigrams used in Angels and Demons, even when Dan was using them by permission,” explains Langdon.
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Langdon blames the “big movie companies and lawyers” for the breakdown in their friendship. The pair continued to communicate by email, until the release of the film Angels and Demons in 2009. “I design symbols, Robert Langdon studies them and knows everything about them. I reckon Robert Langdon is inspired two thirds by Dan Brown and the other third by me.” Dan Brown and John Langdon in more friendly times A breakdown in friendship: ‘it was really fun, but then his world changed’ “My graphic design work focuses on symbols as we see them in logos and also in symbolism – I think that’s why Robert Langdon is a symbologist. Langdon also believes that his work as a graphic designer inspired Robert Langdon’s fictional job title. “So some of those things from our conversation have manifested into aspects of Robert Langdon’s personality.” “When Robert Langdon is in the Louvre and the detective wants him to take the elevator, he’s nervous about that. That turns out to be something Robert Langdon has a problem with. “If I get in an elevator it bothers me to think I’m several storeys above the ground. John Langdon’s original Earth air fire and water ambigram, alongside the ambigram requested by Dan Brown ‘We both get nervous in elevators’ĭuring Brown’s visit to Langdon’s Pennsylvania home, the graphic designer believes that conversations between the two provided inspiration for some of the character’s traits. The redesign of the ambigram would lay the foundation to the first Robert Langdon novel – Angels and Demons. “A couple weeks after he visited he asked if I could redo the ambigram in a different style, something that would be much more sinister looking and ancient.” “He and his wife came and visited me and he wanted to see everything I had ever done, and to explain to him why my designs were the way they were, and then he saw the Earth, Air, Fire and Water ambigram. His book changed the way I think about symmetry, symbols, and art.” “A typographical design consisting of text modified in such a way that it can be read in multiple orientations, as in mirror image, inverted, or when rotated.”ĭuring an interview with Bookbrowse, Brown described how Langdon’s work had affected him: “Artist and philosopher John Langdon is one of our true geniuses. Long before Dan Brown rose to fame through the Robert Langdon series, he studied John Langdon’s work in the latter’s book Wordplay: Ambigrams and Reflections on the Art of Ambigrams. John Langdon: ‘I think the character has become less fresh and exciting’ ‘One of our true geniuses’ This unassuming middle-aged man lives on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where most of his time is spent designing logos.īut John Langdon, who Brown once described “a brilliant alchemist of symbols and language” also happens to have inspired his literary and cinematic namesake – even if he doesn’t share the same sartorial taste.