Joshua Darden

Joshua Darden (born 1979 in Northridge, Los Angeles, California)^[1] is an American typeface designer.^[2] He published his first typeface at the age of 15, becoming according to Fonts In Use the first known African-American typeface designer.^{[3][4][1][5][6]}

Joshua Darden
Born	(1979-01-02) 2 January 1979 (age 44) Los Angeles, California, USA
Nationality	American
Known for	Type design
Awards	Print's New Visual Artists 2006

Career

In 1993, Darden and his high school friend Timothy Glaser co-founded The Scanjam Design Company, a studio for interactive, identity, and type design. Scanjam's retail type families included Diva, Interact, Locus, Out, Profundis, and the Macromedia-award-winning Index.^[7] These were distributed by David Carson's GarageFonts foundry.^{[3][8][9][10][11]}

Darden joined The Hoefler Type Foundry in 2000 as a freelancer, and in 2001 as a full-time employee.^[1][12] In 2004–2005, after a lengthy court battle,^[13][14][15] he established his own foundry, Darden Studio, in Brooklyn.^[4][16][17] Soon after, he published the font superfamily Freight, 120 fonts in five families (Big,^[18] Display,^[19] Micro,^[20] Sans,^[21] and Text).^[22][23] It was inspired by the "Dutch taste" school of typeface design, including the work of Kis, Caslon and Fleischman,^[22][24] and was named a "Favorite Typeface of 2005" by Typographica.^[25] It became one of his most widely seen designs, used by art directors such as Abbott Miller, Mark Porter, and Rick Valicenti, and employed by editorial platforms such as W magazine and Medium.^[4][26][27] Its popularity was perhaps matched by Omnes, as of 2020 Darden Studio's best-selling typeface;^[15] initially designed for Landor, it was released in 2006 and has been used by AT&T, Carrefour, Courrier International, Crayola, Eventbrite, Fanta, and Huggies.^[15][28][29] Darden's other releases for his foundry include Birra Stout, Corundum Text, Dapifer, Halyard, and TDC award-winner,^[30] Jubilat^[31] the logo typeface of Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.^[32] In 2006, Darden was named one of Print magazine's "New Visual Artists", an annual award given to 20 designers under the age of 30, and he juried the prize in 2010.^[33]

In 2019, Darden sold Darden Studio to Joyce Ketterer, who had been working at the company for 13 years. The company retained his name and continues to expand and release Darden's type designs.^[15]

Teaching and lecturing

Darden has lectured at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has sat on panels at the TypeCon and South by Southwest Interactive conferences, visited the Rhode Island School of Design as a Guest Critic, and taught the design and use of typefaces at Parsons School of Design.^[34]

Typefaces

Joshua Darden's typefaces include the following:

1995 Diva^[1]^[35] 1997 Index (with Timothy Glaser)^[11] Interact^[35] Locus (with Timothy Glaser)^[11] Out (with Timothy Glaser)^[11] Out Post (with Timothy Glaser)^[11] 1999 Profundis (with Timothy Glaser) Profundis Sans (with Timothy Glaser)

2003 Sterling (with Karen Silveira, Tobias Frere-Jones, and Jonathan Hoefler)^[36] 2004 Bosch (with Christian Acker, Christian Schwartz, and Erik Spiekermann)^[37] 2005 Freight^[38] (additional styles released later,^[39]^[40] not all by Darden)^[4] FF Meta Headline (with Christian Schwartz and Erik Spiekermann)^[41] 2006 Corundum Text (based on the work of Simon-Pierre Fournier)^[31] Omnes (with Jesse Ragan)^[31]^[42] 2007 Argent (unreleased)^[1]

2008 Birra Stout^[31]^[43] Jubilat^[31] 2012 Dapifer (with Thomas Jockin, Scott Kellum, Noam Berg, and Lucas Sharp)^[44]^[31] Dapifer Stencil^[31] 2017 Halyard (with Eben Sorkin and Lucas Sharp)^[31]^[45]

References

1. Gomez-Palacio, Bryony; Vit, Armin (1 July 2009). "Graphic Design Referenced". Rockport. p. 231.
2. Devroye, Luc. "Darden Studio [Joshua Darden]". Type Design Information. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
3. Stone, Terri (16 November 1999). . Creative Pro. Publish. Archived from the original on 5 March 2001. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
4. Sharp, Lucas (30 November 2017). . Grafik. Archived from the original on 6 July 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
5. "Joshua Darden". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
6. Rawsthorn, Alice (20 March 2011). "Design Gets More Diverse (Published 2011)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
7. "Index". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
8. . The Scanjam Design Company. Archived from the original on 20 April 1999. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
9. . The Scanjam Design Company. Archived from the original on 14 October 2000. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
10. "Emotional Digital: A Sourcebook of Contemporary Typographics". Mainz: Verlag Hermann Schmidt. 1999. p. 147.
11. . GarageFonts. Archived from the original on 23 May 1997. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
12. . 4 October 2003. Archived from the original on 4 October 2003. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
13. "HOEFLER TYPE FOUNDRY vs. DARDEN, JOSHUA". iapps.courts.state.ny.us. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
14. . 1 July 2014. Archived from the original on 1 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
15. Ketterer, Joyce (23 June 2020). "Darden Studio post on the history of the foundry". Archived from the original on 25 December 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2020 – via Instagram.
16. . Current members of the studio. Archived from the original on 19 August 2008. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
17. "Members of the studio". Darden Studio. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
18. . Joshua Darden (archived). Archived from the original on 29 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
19. . Joshua Darden (archived). Archived from the original on 29 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
20. . Joshua Darden (archived). Archived from the original on 29 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
21. . Joshua Darden (archived). Archived from the original on 29 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
22. Berry, John D. (30 May 2005). "Hauling Freight". Creative Pro. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
23. . Joshua Darden (archived). Archived from the original on 29 March 2006. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
24. "GarageFonts hauls Freight to Type Network". TypeNetwork. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
25. Weissman, Dyana (25 December 2005). "Our Favorite Typefaces of 2005". Typographica. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
26. Coles, Stephen (7 August 2005). "Darden's New Website Unloads Big Freight". Typographica. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
27. "Freight Text in use". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
28. "Carrefour brand book, Version 1.0". Issuu. Carrefour. August 2009. p. 44. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
29. "Omnes in use". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
30. "Untitled". The Type Directors Club. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
31. "Our Retail Library". Darden Studio. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
32. Ross, Naomie (18 October 2015). "Bernie Sanders for President 2016". Fonts In Use. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
33. "New Visual Artists 2010". Printmag.com. 18 March 2010. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
34. "Parsons Hosts AIGA: Type Forecast". Art, Media, & Technology. 10 May 2010. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
35. . GarageFonts. Archived from the original on 10 February 1997. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
36. "Sterling type family". designarchives.aiga.org. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
37. Schwartz, Christian. "Bosch". Schwartzco Inc. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
38. "New Type Design: Freight Released". CreativePro. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
39. Weissman, Dyana. "Freight Big and Display". Typographica. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
40. "New Typeface Designs – Freight Big and Freight Display – Released by Phil´s Fonts and GarageFonts". CreativePro. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
41. Schwartz, Christian. "FF Meta Headline". Schwartzco Inc. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
42. Vit, Armin. "Omnes". Typographica. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
43. Luecke, Karsten. "Birra Stout". Typographica. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
44. Phinney, Thomas. "Dapifer". Typographica. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
45. Stefan, Ellmer. "Halyard". Typographica. Retrieved 17 July 2020.

External links

• Darden Studio