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Spotlights

Humans of St. Norbert: Brian Pirman
Portrait of professor Brian Pirman

Humans of St. Norbert: Brian Pirman

Humans of St. Norbert:

“There’s a quote in the movie Helvetica that says, ‘Typography is just like air.’ It’s there. It’s everywhere. I think people sleepwalk through life without realizing it. As a designer, I’ve come to realize that typography is one of the elements that one could use to basically communicate a message with a certain tone. That's the beauty of typography. What I find fascinating is that more and more people are realizing that. There’s more typefaces being designed than ever before. Part of that is the digital revolution has empowered way more people to do it. It used to be a craft that took a long time and was specialized, now it’s pretty much wide open. It’s democratized. Typography is sort of a blessed curse in that I’ll see typography that’s really terrible and I’ll shake my head, but when I see typography that’s really good, it makes me feel good. I’m not talking about the functionality of typography, I’m talking about the expressive nature of typography.”
– Brian Pirman, associate professor of art