Irina Smirnova is a free-lance type designer currently working in Moscow, teacher and consultant on Cyrillic. Irina started to live and breath typedesign at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts and aquired her first experience working closely with and learning a lot from Tagir Safayev. She worked for ParaType and Art Lebedev Studio. Teaching type design and calligrpahy has been a source of inspiration since she started to work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, and continued later on at the British Higher School of Art and Design. An ambition to become a good type designer brought Irina to the Hague where she did Type&Media Master course and graduated in 2010. The following years were full of challenges, discoveries and exciting collaborations with Exlijbris Font Foundry, Typotheque, Sorkin Type, Production Type and other foundries and type designers. The unique atmosphere of Type&Media and interest in calligraphy inspired Irina to translate 'The Stroke. Theory of Writing' by Gerrit Noordzij into her native Russian language.