Profile
Robin Klingensmith, owner of Designer’s Typography, started her career in the commercial printing industry typesetting on a Singer Justaperf creating documents as a series of holes on one-inch wide paper tape. A computer read the tapes, and a set of galleys was output. Old-school paste-up was the means of creating artboards from these galleys, with overlays for color separations.
In the early 1980s, Robin moved on to the first Varityper 6400 phototypesetting machine in the Pittsburgh area. Most operators of the Varityper 6400 set type in galley format, but she was persistent in learning how to produce an entire page layout, eliminating the need for extensive paste-up.
Reluctant to trade in the Varityper 6400 for a Macintosh Performa 600, in the early 1990s she quickly learned what a Mac could do. Self-taught, she became an expert with QuarkXPress, PageMaker, Freehand, and Illustrator.
In addition to typesetting, Robin worked for over 10 years in prepress, prepping client files for digital output. During this tenure she developed an extraordinary ability to troubleshoot files, fix the problem, and “make it work.” Working with client files, she gained design instinct and developed the “eye” that makes all the difference in the look and feel of the finished product.
In 2004, Robin left the commercial printing industry and started Designer’s Typography to offer her expertise to those needing professional document layout and formatting. Today, there is not much she can’t do on her Mac G5. She is even more proficient in QuarkXPress® and now in Adobe® InDesign®. She has extensive experience with Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe® Illustrator®, and Adobe® Acrobat®. And, she loves the challenge each new project brings.
