Probably due to its simplicity, symmetry and frequent use as an element in
decorative arts, I have been aware of the Fleur-de-lis for longer than I can
recall. However, I have never considered it a particularly beautiful or
well-designed symbol. This may be because the fleur-de-lis is a stylized
image of an actual plant, rather than a symbol of an abstract concept.
So as I watched the Super Bowl in February (what a great game that was!) I
studied the symbol on the sides of the Saints' helmets, and sketched and
re-sketched until I had something I liked. By making the overall shape a
'diamond' (square turned 45 degrees), and making the leaves with circles, I
brought a geometry to the fleur-de-lis that I don't think it's had before. I
think that in the transition from nature to symbol, the artists had stopped
a bit too early. So here's my new take on an old and widely revered image
from heraldry and the decorative arts.
So, Saints, Louisiana, France, et alia,* this copyrighted fleur-de-lis is
available for purchase.
*Latin for “and all o’ ya” – is that where Italia got its name? ; )
This ad is on the inside front cover of the current (Spring 2010) issue of Yoga+ magazine… Available wherever awesome magazines are sold!
When this logo was in sketch form, the project was cancelled. But I like it as well as, or better than, any of my other logos – not because the torch symbol is in any way a fresh idea in the education world, but because the torch showed up only when I found a symmetrical solution to the group’s initials. Is it Greek to you?
My first symbology posting is a lighthearted but factual poem about the symbolic uses of the letter X. It was written for, and read at “Fan Letters” – the October 29, 2009 launch party for Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen’s book, Lettering and Type (which includes a number of my ambigrams) at the Maryland Institute College of Art. As part of the festivities, 26 artists and designers each made a presentation about a letter of the alphabet.
There are several Professor Langdons. The best known Professor Langdon was invented by Dan Brown for his novel, Angels & Demons, and he wasn’t that well known until he appeared in another Dan Brown novel called The DaVinci Code. His first name is Robert. Except for the Robert part, he was named after the Professor Langdon whom this site regards, John Langdon (who, at the time, was a contract instructor at Drexel University – not yet a professor. But that’s another story.)
Dan named his protagonist after John Langdon (sooner or later I’m going to start writing in the first person, but not yet), partly in appreciation for his contribution to Angels & Demons – the ambigrams. Robert Langdon is a symbologist – a person whose academic specialty is focused on the plethora of graphic symbols that human beings have designed as powerful visual cues to organizing and understanding the universe and our relationship to it. John Langdon (that’s me) is a graphic designer whose creative work is focused on designing symbols for the same purposes.
Strictly speaking, symbols are simple and stylized graphic shapes existing in a concise and easily repeated form – and because they address the concerns of all human beings, they don’t involve the alphabet or language of any particular culture. Most of Professor John Langdon’s work involves words. The words John treats artistically are words in the English language that refer to the same ideas and principles that symbols are often called upon to represent. This might be a limitation of John’s work, but the English language is becoming more and more universal every day. Thank goodness.
Not that John hasn’t designed symbols per se.
He has – mostly for corporate clients.
But more often than not, John’s passionate love of letters creeps in, even when it’s not obvious…
In these examples the pictorial image is, to varying degrees, more powerful than the letterforms. In these images, the name of the business and the industry within which it operates are less powerfully represented, yielding a little to accommodate the initial letter or letters of the name. But you could probably still guess the ideas behind the images. Again, click to reveal the name of the business.
So, that’s a bit of an introduction to Professor (John) Langdon. This site will focus on symbols. Dan Brown pretty much invented the pursuit called “Symbology,” but it would be fair to say that Symbology is what we’ll do here.
