Apparatus and method provided herein are directed to a linear differential directional microphone array (LDDMA), which takes into account the directionality of the array elements. The LDDMA may be designed by generating a steering vector for a linear array (LA) having preselected parameters including parameters δ, p, θ, N, and M, generating a constraint matrix based on the steering vector, reformulating the constraint matrix based on a microphone response matrix and a steering matrix, obtaining a beamformer by applying a minimum norm solution in terms of the constraint matrix, verifying a desired characteristic of the LA by calculating the beamformer for a desired direction, and constructing the LA based on the preselected parameters and the beamformer.