I learned earlier this week that my college typography professor and friend John Langdon passed away.

I’m gutted.

I majored in Digital Media. I was learning all the emerging technologies at the time: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, Director, ActionScript, Lingo, Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D Studio Max, Maya, and so much more.

But I also found out about this thing called “graphic design” that I had never heard of before. As I researched it more, it seemed important to learn about in addition to all the cool software and tech.

Unfortunately, I had very few Graphic Design classes as part of my Digital Media curriculum. Somehow, I convinced the college to let me do an independent study in typography. The professor they assigned me to was John Langdon.

John wasn’t the inventor of ambigrams—words, typically logotypes, that can be read in two or more orientations—but he popularized them. Many ambigram fans know about them because of the ones John created for the book Angels & Demons. (Author Dan Brown named the protoganist—played by Tom Hanks in the movies—Robert Langdon as a hat tip to John’s contribution.)

Because John designed so many ambigrams, he could write and draw right-side-up, upside-down, backwards, forwards, mirrored… any way you could imagine.

There was no pretense in learning from John. We sat across from each other at a desk with a piece of paper and a pencil between us. No slides or computers. He’d teach me about typography and draw what he was talking about. He drew everything upside down so I could read it. And he’d ask me to draw stuff back to show that I was learning what he was teaching.

His lessons were always simple and lasting. Here‘s one I’ll never forget. He was trying to teach me how to look at letters as shapes. So, he gave me a homework assignment to set any uppercase character in Franklin Gothic Roman at 400pt. Then below it, a caption in ITC Century Italic at 20pt. The job of the caption is to make you relook at the character above it in a different way.

I picked the letter “G” and wrote the caption, “Another failed recycle logo.” I was very proud of this work, and John loved it too.

Eight years later, I literally used same exact concept when I was working on the Grammarly identity, with the exception of replacing Century with Sentinel, a more modern redrawing of the same underlying ideas. Grammarly used it for a decade. Of all the work I’ve done for any client, the Grammarly logo is the one my kids brag about to their friends—“my dad made the Grammarly logo”—because they all use the app at school.

I can trace all of this directly back to John.

John taught me that geometric sans serifs have simple letterforms because the shapes are simple, and that’s why the alphabet chart we all learn in school often uses it. That‘s the same exact rationale I included in my pitch to Crayola to change their corporate typeface from Cronos to Darden Studio’s Omnes. Crayola’s been using it for the last 13 years.

I can trace that directly back to John.

(And yes, type nerds: I know Omnes is more of a rounded grotesque sans rather than a geometric sans, but the analogy helped me make the case for a typeface with simpler letterforms for a revered children’s brand.)

After college, John and I kept in touch frequently. He hired me to animate some of his letterforms and help him with some brand work. I hired him to draw some logos for me. We never charged each other for any of that.

One of my favorites connections was when we were looking for someone to draw a logo for Typedia. I knew John would be the perfect person. The logo came out amazing. John wrote an incredible play-by-play of the process.

About 9 months ago, I got a note from John, offering some of his unsold paintings to former students for the low low price of just paying for shipping. I was more than happy to scoop up one of my favorites: his Love painting.

John had a tremendous impact on my career, education, and life. I’m so grateful to have known him.

Join 66,800+ subscribers to the weekly Dan Mall Teaches newsletter. I promise to keep my communication light and valuable!