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Ilene Strizver
Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a noted typographic educator, consultant, designer and writer. She specializes in all aspect of visual communication, from the aesthetic to the technical. Ilene has written and lectured extensively on type and typographic design to both students and professionals in the field.
Ilene formerly was the Director of Typeface Development for International Typeface Corporation (ITC), where she developed more than 300 text and display typefaces with such respected and world-renowned type designers as Sumner Stone, Erik Spiekermann, Jill Bell, Jim Parkinson, Tim Donaldson, and the late Phill Grimshaw. She cut her typographic teeth by working on Upper and Lowercase (U&lc) and other type projects with such legendary icons as Ed Benguiat, Aaron Burns, and Herb Lubalin.
Her clients included International Typeface Corporation, Monotype Imaging, Linotype, Adobe, Galápagos Design Group, BJ's Wholesale, Haband, Nassau Guardian, Johnson & Johnson and bethere.com.
Ilene has written for HOW, Dynamic Graphics, and STEP Inside magazines. She also authors the popular column "fy(t)I For Your Typographic Information," which can be found on www.fonts.com and www.itcfonts.com. Her current book, Type Rules! The designer's guide to professional typography, 2nd edition, has received numerous accolades from the type and design community. She conducts her widely acclaimed Gourmet Typography workshops internationally.
TypeTalk: Spot OpenType Fonts Fast
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on May 7, 2008
Here's how to tell whether a font is OpenType without leaving your page-layout app.
TypeTalk: Good-looking Figures
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on April 28, 2008
What are the differences between "oldstyle" and "lining" figures, and what situations call for which kind of numbers?
TypeTalk: Create Your Own Fonts
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on April 23, 2008
What program is best for designing typefaces?
TypeTalk: Text Fonts versus Display Fonts
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on April 15, 2008
What's the difference between text and display fonts? And which ones can you use where?
TypeTalk: Access Special Characters
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on April 9, 2008
Print out this handy chart of key combinations for the most commonly used special characters.
TypeTalk: Justify My Text
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on March 31, 2008
Making justified text look good is tough, but it's not impossible.
TypeTalk: Spell-Check Sabotage
Blog: Written by Ilene Strizver on March 19, 2008
Is your spell checker confused? Older fonts may be to blame.
TypeTalk: It's Fontariffic!
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on February 22, 2008
Answers to your questions about awkward spaces, "prime" time, and free fonts.
TypeTalk: Fast Answers to Font Questions
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on January 23, 2008
Are smart quotes always curly? Are headlines always left aligned? When is it OK to use ampersands? And how do you find and use true small caps?
TypeTalk: Practical Tips You Can Use
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on December 21, 2007
From how to break long URLs to the epic struggle between em dashes and en dashes, we have the answers to your typographic quandaries.
TypeTalk: A Cornucopia of Font Facts
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on November 19, 2007
This month, learn how to handle scaling surprises, PDFs that need editing, an optical font family, and those weird marks some editor scribbled on your layout.
TypeTalk: Do's and Don'ts
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on October 24, 2007
This month's column covers spaces, faces, traces, and more!
TypeTalk: Waddya Wanna Know?
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on September 21, 2007
While type may seem like a niche topic, it covers a surprisingly large territory. This column ranges far and wide: from stylistic sets to text boxes to point sizes to hyperlinks.
TypeTalk: Counter Intelligence
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on August 31, 2007
Got a question, any question, about type, typography, or fonts? We have the answers!
TypeTalk: Information, Activation, Matching Feet, and Style Sheets
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on July 25, 2007
The newest installment of our type column is bursting with stuff you need to know.
TypeTalk: Your Fountain of Font Facts
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on June 22, 2007
This month, read about em and en dashes in print and on the Web; specimen books; and the best way to convert quotation marks and primes from dumb to smart and back again.
TypeTalk: What You Want to Know
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on May 21, 2007
Questions and answers on word spacing, kerning, tracking, period placement, missing fonts, and font-size confusion.
TypeTalk: Opening Up About OpenType
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on April 30, 2007
Do you have questions about mixing font formats in one file, crossing platforms, automating old-style figures, the best apps for OpenType, and the fonts with the most bang for the buck? We've got answers!
TypeTalk: The Word on Indents, Hyphenation, Leading, and Finding Fonts
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on March 30, 2007
The type-setting abilities of today’s design applications can be huge time-savers -- when we use them correctly.
TypeTalk: Answers to Your Type Questions
Features: Written by Ilene Strizver on February 23, 2007
True small caps, combining glyphs to create new letters, booming population of widows and orphans, best font editors