A Conversation with Joshua Darden
2006
A Conversation with Joshua Darden
by Nico Wheadon
The Joshua Darden Studio is a premier typeface design studio with an innovative approach to production that highlights the key intersections of art and industry. In recognizing the ever-changing needs of readers in a digital age, the Joshua Darden Studio employs market research and experimentation to forge a new design paradigm in which function and expression coalesce into fresh typefaces that have a “solid raison d’être, free of post-rationalization or an unnecessarily romantic view of historical norms.” Innovators such as Darden drive rather than follow commercial trends and remain at the forefront of constantly evolving creative markets by fabricating custom, distinct typographical aesthetics that serve the design needs of clients such as The New York Times Magazine and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Nico Wheadon For those of us in the dark, could you explain what typography is and the ways by which it is considered an artistic process or practice?
Joshua Darden Typography is the design of the look and feel of text. For most of its history, it has been associated with publishing and advertising. Before the 1880s, the process of typeface design was physical and involved the actual sculpting of shapes into steel with sharp handheld tools. I am a typeface designer which means I draw the alphabet, numerals, basic punctuation and at least two hundred other symbols comprising a custom typeface and then create a software program that is installable on a user's computer. Because typography is a means of communication, typeface designers also tend to be interested in language and legibility and try to understand the cultural connotations of different lettering styles.
NW How do you navigate between the various demands of art and industry? How do you translate client needs into visual systems and vice versa?
JD We synthesize a client's aesthetic needs and functional requirements with what we believe to be true about readability, aided by an awareness of how we and other designers have addressed similar questions in the past. We then assemble up to a dozen different ideas, relevant historical samples, contemporary graphic ideas, and fragments from our pile of speculative projects, all of which may engender a new design which comes with plenty of documentation and ongoing support.
NW What iconic projects, past and future, are most emblematic of your studio’s mission?
JD I'm particularly pleased with a project we completed this spring for the redesign of the Asian Tatler magazines. It was the first time we had provided 100 percent of the typefaces for a publication, approximately a third of which were new designs created expressly for Tatler's use. We're also working on a new website, and our first printed catalogue and have about a dozen new typeface families in development for the general market.
Darden, arguably the pioneering independent font designer of African American descent, was born in 1979 in Northridge, California and never received formal training in typeface design. Darden founded the Joshua Darden Studio in 2004 and currently teaches Typography at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.
by Nico Wheadon
The Joshua Darden Studio is a premier typeface design studio with an innovative approach to production that highlights the key intersections of art and industry. In recognizing the ever-changing needs of readers in a digital age, the Joshua Darden Studio employs market research and experimentation to forge a new design paradigm in which function and expression coalesce into fresh typefaces that have a “solid raison d’être, free of post-rationalization or an unnecessarily romantic view of historical norms.” Innovators such as Darden drive rather than follow commercial trends and remain at the forefront of constantly evolving creative markets by fabricating custom, distinct typographical aesthetics that serve the design needs of clients such as The New York Times Magazine and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Nico Wheadon For those of us in the dark, could you explain what typography is and the ways by which it is considered an artistic process or practice?
Joshua Darden Typography is the design of the look and feel of text. For most of its history, it has been associated with publishing and advertising. Before the 1880s, the process of typeface design was physical and involved the actual sculpting of shapes into steel with sharp handheld tools. I am a typeface designer which means I draw the alphabet, numerals, basic punctuation and at least two hundred other symbols comprising a custom typeface and then create a software program that is installable on a user's computer. Because typography is a means of communication, typeface designers also tend to be interested in language and legibility and try to understand the cultural connotations of different lettering styles.
NW How do you navigate between the various demands of art and industry? How do you translate client needs into visual systems and vice versa?
JD We synthesize a client's aesthetic needs and functional requirements with what we believe to be true about readability, aided by an awareness of how we and other designers have addressed similar questions in the past. We then assemble up to a dozen different ideas, relevant historical samples, contemporary graphic ideas, and fragments from our pile of speculative projects, all of which may engender a new design which comes with plenty of documentation and ongoing support.
NW What iconic projects, past and future, are most emblematic of your studio’s mission?
JD I'm particularly pleased with a project we completed this spring for the redesign of the Asian Tatler magazines. It was the first time we had provided 100 percent of the typefaces for a publication, approximately a third of which were new designs created expressly for Tatler's use. We're also working on a new website, and our first printed catalogue and have about a dozen new typeface families in development for the general market.
Darden, arguably the pioneering independent font designer of African American descent, was born in 1979 in Northridge, California and never received formal training in typeface design. Darden founded the Joshua Darden Studio in 2004 and currently teaches Typography at Parsons The New School for Design in New York.
