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Informationen zum Autor Graphic designer JOHN LANGDON has won numerous awards for his logo designs; his ambigrams have appeared in countless publications; and the first museum show of his paintings was held in late 2004 at the Noyes Museum of Art in New Jersey.He is the creator of the ambigrams in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons . Langdon teaches at the College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University, and lives in Philadelphia. Klappentext Award-winning graphic designer John Langdon was perhaps the first practitioner of the art of ambigrams. In this updated edition he adds a significant amount of new material to further enhance the reader's enjoyment of the peculiar illusion created when a word can be read right-side up and upside down. Discovering the Tao The first time I saw the yin and yang symbol was one of those moments that become permanent mental photographs. I didn't know back in 1966 what lay beyond the door, but it is now clear that a door had opened for me. Yin and yang made a deep and immediate impression--an impression I was aware of somewhere between my nervous system and the source of my emotions, but would have been hard pressed to identify or describe out loud. If I had said anything, I might have quoted the introduction to the 1960s TV program Ben Casey: "Man . . . woman . . . birth . . . death . . . infinity . . . ," followed perhaps by "summer, winter, hot, cold, north, south, on, off, up, down," and so on. Although it would be several years before I ever heard of Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophy from which yin and yang originates, I seem to have subconsciously sensed that the symbol's simple representation of polarized opposites and harmonious complements applied perfectly to most of the major forces inherent in our existence. I pondered the yin and yang symbol and fooled around with it graphically for years, at first unaware of the interest in Eastern thought that was to grow steadily in popularity through the ensuing decades. After seeing parts of this book in its early stages, a young physics student wrote to me: "Taoist imagery of interaction and of a natural, flowing, universal holism is becoming more and more infused into our consciousness. Such ideas have been a latent part of our psyche for centuries. Their lineage can be traced, almost directly, from the Renaissance hermeticists, to the alchemists and early scientists, through writers such as Eliot and Joyce, and finally into aspects of our own popular culture." The sixties' pop culture included a significant amount of interest in Eastern thought, which has since filtered into many more mainstream facets of Western culture. In the same way that the cross could be thought of as a logo for Christianity and the Star of David as a logo for Judaism, the yin and yang symbol is a logo for Taoism. As such, it is one of the best logos ever designed. A logo should communicate, in as simple and efficient a form as possible, a maximum of information about the entity it represents. And by the time I began to read about Taoism, I found to my amazement that I had already inferred virtually all that I was reading, simply by applying the ideas of polarized opposites and harmonious complements to a seemingly infinite number of situations that exist in our lives and in the workings of the universe. This, I learned, is quite appropriate to Taoism, a basic tenet of which holds that each person should find his own way. In the words of Lao-tzu, "Without leaving my house, I [can] know the whole universe." It seems likely that Taoism developed in much the same way as the physical sciences did--through observation of the world around us. Sir Isaac Newton is perhaps best known for his third law, which states that "for every action, there is opposed an equal and opposite reaction." The yin and yang symbol may as well have been designed to illustrate that idea. In his letter to me...

Autorentext
John Langdon

Klappentext
Award-winning graphic designer John Langdon was perhaps the first practitioner of the art of ambigrams. In this updated edition he adds a significant amount of new material to further enhance the reader's enjoyment of the peculiar illusion created when a word can be read right-side up and upside down.


Zusammenfassung
Take a second look at the cover of this book—this time, turn it upside down. The title, Wordplay, is an ambigram, which means you will be able to read it both right side up and upside down.

You may be familiar with the John Langdon’s ambigrams from Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons (see pages 186 and 188 of Wordplay), but if this is your first experience with the art of the ambigram, prepare to be dazzled! This lovely updated edition of the classic collection of ambigrams features a section of full-color ambigrams and dozens of stunning, mind-bending examples of this cryptic art form. Each strikingly beautiful and arresting illustration is accompanied by a short essay—sometimes serious, sometimes witty—to delight your brain as much as your eyes. Taken together, the art and the essays show how the very shape of letters can change our idea of words and their meanings. As Dan Brown says in the Foreword of this revised edition, John Langdon brilliantly rearranges the familiar, casting it in a new light.

Both playful and profound, Wordplay will challenge you to take a second look at your world.

Leseprobe
Discovering the Tao


The first time I saw the yin and yang symbol was one of those moments that become permanent mental photographs. I didn't know back in 1966 what lay beyond the door, but it is now clear that a door had opened for me. Yin and yang made a deep and immediate impression--an impression I was aware of somewhere between my nervous system and the source of my emotions, but would have been hard pressed to identify or describe out loud. If I had said anything, I might have quoted the introduction to the 1960s TV program Ben Casey: "Man . . . woman . . . birth . . . death . . . infinity . . . ," followed perhaps by "summer, winter, hot, cold, north, south, on, off, up, down," and so on. Although it would be several years before I ever heard of Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophy from which yin and yang originates, I seem to have subconsciously sensed that the symbol's simple representation of polarized opposites and harmonious complements applied perfectly to most of the major forces inherent in our existence.

I pondered the yin and yang symbol and fooled around with it graphically for years, at first unaware of the interest in Eastern thought that was to grow steadily in popularity through the ensuing decades. After seeing parts of this book in its early stages, a young physics student wrote to me: "Taoist imagery of interaction and of a natural, flowing, universal holism is becoming more and more infused into our consciousness. Such ideas have been a latent part of our psyche for centuries. Their lineage can be traced, almost directly, from the Renaissance hermeticists, to the alchemists and early scientists, through writers such as Eliot and Joyce, and finally into aspects of our own popular culture."

The sixties' pop culture included a significant amount of interest in Eastern thought, which has since filtered into many more mainstream facets of Western culture.

In the same way that the cross could be thought of as a logo for Christianity and the Star of David as a logo for Judaism, the yin and yang symbol is a logo for Taoism. As such, it is one of the best logos ever designed. A logo should communicate, in as simple and efficient a form as possible, a maximum of information about the entity it represents. And by the time I began to read about Taoism, I found to my amazement that I had already inferred virtually all that I was reading, simp…

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