Working on a job for a corporate client. In one sentence there are two words inside parentheses, and both words must be italic. Should the parentheses also be italic?
The copywriter isn't sure. My guess is that they shouldn't be italic, but I'm not sure if there's a rule that applies.
If the rest of the sentence is not italic, the parentheses should not be italic.
(Some typographers never use italic parentheses and brackets, even if the entire context is italic. But if you do italicize them, their style is dictated by the surrounding sentence, just like quote marks. Also roman parentheses just look nicer.)
Related: http://typophile.com/node/58456
Not italic for me. But opinions differ.*
It also depends on the look of the typeface and the possible clashing.
Independent of context, it's often smart to end emphasis at a word space. The reason is to avoid potential collisions and big holes in the spacing (ex: collision when italic ascending letter is followed by a roman question mark; gap when italics are followed by a roman period.) Also, punctuation usually doesn't carry as much meaning as words do. Try reading the text and see for yourself what the different solutions communicate.
Thanks for the replies, they were very helpful.
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