Why is this person an important typographer? Joshua Darden is a talented American typeface designer. At the age of fifteen, he published his first typeface. According to Fonts In Use, he was the first African-American typeface designer. This is a significant mark in typography as it created more diversity to the field. Darden and his friend, Timothy Glaser, co-created the “The Scanjam Design Company” in 1993. He was just thirteen years old at the time. This was a studio for interactive, identity and type design. The company created and sold typeface families which included Diva, Interact, Locus Out, Profundis, and the Macromedia-award winning Index. These fonts were dispersed by David Carson’s Garage Fonts foundry.

He was a creator of profoundly influential typefaces. Freight is a typeface superfamily . In 2006, he released his Omnes, a pillowy soft sans serif, and it has gained great popularity. It is used by companies including AT&T, Courrier International, Crayola, Eventbrite, Fanta, and Huggies. His logo typeface, Jubilat, won the Type Directors Club award and was employed by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns in both 2016 and 2020. This showed its impact in political communication.

Darden’s company does not believe in creating typefaces that are trendy and fleeting. His typefaces are timeless, yet keep their visual attractiveness. His emphasis on quality has made his work last over time and has a great impact on the field. In 2006, he was also given the honour as one of Print magazine’s “New Visual Artists”. This award is given to emerging talent in the field of design. His typefaces are still being used today proving that his work has left its mark on contemporary type design and visual communication.

Freight has made a significant influence in the field of typography for many reasons. Freight offers a versatile, humanistic quality and extensive structure. It may not be the first typefaces to be developed and distributed as a superfamily, but it added and popula;ized this approach. This superfamily included serif (Freight Text), sans-serif Freight Sans), and display (Freight Display), micro (Freight Micro), and micro (Freight MIcro) versions. It set a trend with its comprehensive approach, including its multitude of optical ranges and stylistic diversities. Freight is created to work skillfully and provides the user a full typographic experience with an extensive choice for a wide range of applications. Its large range of optical sizes and style make it easy to use for tiny texts to headlines. The versatility of this typeface is inspirational to designers as it allows them to adapt to many contexts without losing the cohesive visual identity. It helped other designers and foundries see the value of superfamilies and led them to develop new ones.

Since Freight is based on the 18th century English and Dutch typeface, it encouraged a stronger appreciation of historical influences. It shows how one could use classic forms and reinvent and change them for contemporary use. This builds an appreciation in the history of typography. Also, his approach to humanist principle seen clearly in sans-serifs style helped designers understand this version. It proved that humanist qualities could go beyond calligraphy and imitation. It could stress on warmth,ease of legibility and slight organic forms. Designers learned that they can have a humanist approach in their designs.

Darden has set a high standard with his development of the Freight family. This family is able to create a variety of moods and tones through its different styles and has increased its appeal for branding companies. It is used by the National Museum of African American History and Cultures to prove its ability to capture a brand’s voice and personality across various media. His Freight set a benchmark for other typographers of the quality, attention to detail, and vast varieties of weights and styles needed to create well-made and versatile typeface designs. This encouraged them to follow suit.

This composition has many elements to analyze. For starters, the composition has many styles that work in unison while not competing with each other. Darden used light weight italics coupled with serif Roman caps giving it a delicate yet strong look. The alignment is mostly consistent throughout the whole piece. There is a consistent alignment across many different font sizes and typefaces which gives the composition a grounded feeling. Almost all text is properly aligned to either the left or the center, with a few unaligned blocks to add flair. These elements help give the composition its visual appeal.

There is a strong visual hierarchy that provides strong reading flow through multiple techniques. Such techniques include having clear entry points which help break the flow of the composition and reset the reader's attention. Another technique is the strong rhythm and consistent pacing. Each segment fluctuates in density between heavy, bold and strong to airy, thin, and initialized. Different parts of the composition are separated subtly without breaking the reader’s flow by implementing thin lines or colour shifts. This gives each component the feeling of being self contained while not feeling isolated. The colour use is meticulous being limited to headers, italics, and accents. Colour is being used to emphasize rather than to decorate. Due to this, the colour use is minimal yet still has a big impact. Overall, this composition is successful because it blends the principles of hierarchies, contrast, space, balance, and different typographic treatments. The success can be seen in how the information is captivating and simple to understand.