Robert Langdon - Character Development

Character Development

The character was created by Dan Brown as a fictional alter ego of himself or "the man he wishes he could be". Brown himself was born June 22, 1964 in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the fictional Langdon is described as having been born on June 22, also in Exeter, and attending the same school as Brown did, Phillips Exeter Academy. Initially we learn that Langdon is a successful scholar that Brown named after John Langdon, a professor of typography at Drexel University who is known for his creation of ambigrams, typographical designs that can be read in multiple ways; for example, both right side up and upside down. An example of Langdon's ambigrams appeared on the cover of the first edition of Brown’s novel Angels & Demons, and other ambigrams featured throughout that novel were also designed by Langdon. 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 the ambigrams for this novel". John Langdon also created the logo for the fictional Depository Bank of Zurich, which appears in The Da Vinci Code film.