Flexion developed out of design philosophy and ambigramatic artwork of John Langdon. Based on the contents in John’s book Wordplay, author Dan Brown hired John to create ambigrams for his forthcoming novel Angels & Demons. Mr. Brown was so impressed with his work he even named the main character Robert Langdon after John.After the success of Angels & Demons, Dan Brown wrote The Da Vinci Code. When the movie adaptation of that book was in the works, Dan suggested that John create titles for the movie based on ambigrams. John contacted Hal Taylor to create a font based on the lettering treatment to be used for the credits at the end of the movie. Unfortunately, it was decided that the film was running long and the original title concept was scrapped. By this time, Hal was well into developing a full type family, including small caps, alternate characters, lining and ranging figures. John was impressed with the way the design was turning out and decided that it had enough merit to be released as Flexion.
The characters in Flexion are tamer than the original titling concept, but the essence of symmetrical lettering still remains: the B becomes an E when flipped; the C becomes a D; the G is a reversed P; the J can also be an L; and the S mirrors a Z. There is almost no way a typeface can become ambigram elements, but it is possible to create many ambigrams from the existing user-friendly designs. Flexion contains a multitude of advanced OpenType features.
About the designer:
John is a graphic designer and is currently a Professor of Advanced Typography at Drexel University. He has won many awards for his outstanding design work. Hal Taylor first met John at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) where he was a guest typography teacher. Hal began providing finished artwork for various logo and hand-lettering projects. They shared a very successful working relationship through the 1980s until the need for custom lettering waned. Their independent careers have recently merged once again with the release of this typeface. More information on John Langdon can be found on his website.
This package contains:
Flexion Pro Regular, Medium, Bold, Black
Copyright © 2006 International TypeFounders. All rights reserved.
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