Skip to content
Gardner Creative WorksDesign • Web • Restoration • Resale

Graphic Design

Editorial, identity, advertising and print.

Publications built around a strong idea, brands carried across every piece they touch, and commercial work made to be read at a glance.

Cover of SHIFT: The History of Signs, with multicolored sign-style lettering and a band of sign photographs
Title page opposite a full-page repeating SHIFT pattern
Neon and Fluorescents spread pairing a text column with vertical strips of neon photography
Explore the Gallery spread with a grid of vintage and neon sign photographs
Handmade wooden SHIFT letters painted orange, red, black, blue and green, mounted on a pine board

Editorial Design · Typography

SHIFT

The History of Signs

SHIFT: The History of Signs is a magazine-format publication tracing signage from early lettering through neon to contemporary work. I designed the identity, cover, chapter structure and editorial spreads, built a repeating pattern from the SHIFT lettering, and made the logotype physical as painted wooden letters.

View project
Break Out Your Best Ugly Sweater! poster on a green knit texture, with a photo of friends in holiday sweaters, the party date and time at Sports & Social, and a row of sweater illustrationsAnimated display ad for MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper cycling through three frames: Because there are more fish stories to tell, Get a second opinion from the experts, and A second opinion gives you more: information, options, confidence, each with a Schedule Now buttonEmbrace Your Inner Mixologist shelf talker for Fine Wine & Good Spirits, in cream type on deep red with glassware icons, a QR code and the Happier Holidays ribbon
Start a Winning Career at Live! Casino hiring event ad: event date and new location, an Urgent Hiring box, two columns of Also Hiring For positions, pre-registration details with a QR code, and a smiling chef photo on the rightDon't Forget the Host Gift. On Your Way? Stop In Today. ad for Fine Wine & Good Spirits in cream type on deep red with a wine bottle and glass icon

Commercial Advertising · Production Design

Agency Campaign Work

Advertising and production work I created while freelancing for a marketing agency, for brands including Live! Casino and its event space The Venue, MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper, and Fine Wine & Good Spirits. The work runs from animated display ads and web banners to newspaper and print ads, posters, in-store signage and seasonal retail promotions, with each campaign set up for the sizes and placements it needed.

View project
Copper Creek Plumbing & Drain desktop homepage with navy hero, headline and Request Service button

Web Design · Concept

Copper Creek Plumbing & Drain

Copper Creek is a practice project: a website for a fictional local plumbing company, designed to work through the problems a real small-business site has to solve—presenting services clearly, building trust quickly, and making it easy to call or request service from any screen.

View project
Closed Students Spotlight cover: a red MFA spine beside a face built from vertical strips of different students' portraits
Professor Spotlight cover: a face assembled from vertical strips of faculty portraits beside a red Rutgers spine
The printed piece standing partly opened at an angle, showing how its narrow panels fold against each other
A red professor profile panel for Lisa Zeidner, with a portrait and list of published books, over the segmented faculty face
Opened panels showing three numbered Learning Goals beside a student profile for Emily Brodeur
Spring and Fall 2017 course schedule with contact details, next to a student profile for Eric Feldman

Editorial Design · Print Design · Information Design

MFA Creative Writing Spotlight

Students Spotlight · Professor Spotlight

A printed foldout for the Rutgers–Camden MFA in Creative Writing. Closed, each cover is a single face built from narrow strips of different portraits: a Students Spotlight on one side and a Professor Spotlight on the other. Opening the panels reveals student and faculty profiles, the program's learning goals, the 2017 course schedule and an introduction to the Writers House.

  • Editorial layout
  • Print design
  • Information hierarchy
  • Typography
  • Student and faculty profiles
  • Folding structure
View project
Voting poster styled like a vintage boxing bill, billing Democrat versus Republican for Tuesday, Nov. 8th 2016, with the four contending issues, a Green versus Libertarian third-party contest, “Make your choice” and registration and eligibility details above an AIGA Get Out the Vote footer

Poster Design · Civic Campaign

Voting Poster

A poster created for AIGA’s Get Out the Vote campaign, inspired by the bold visual language of vintage boxing posters. The election is presented like a headline matchup, using strong typography, party colors, and clear information hierarchy to organize candidates, issues, registration details, and voting information. The piece was exhibited with other campaign entries at the Capitol Building in Philadelphia.

View project
Waggin' Wheels brand pieces laid out together: takeout bag, logo card, menu, business card, printed bags, magnets and a print of the truck at a dog park
Waggin' Wheels menu with Snacks, Chow, Treats and Drinks sections framed by dog silhouettes
Composited scene of the black Waggin' Wheels food truck at a dog park

Brand Identity · Concept

Waggin' Wheels

Waggin' Wheels, “Wholesome Meals for Your Four-Legged Friend,” is a conceptual brand for a dog food truck. I developed the identity and carried it across printed collateral and branded items, then composited the finished truck into a dog park scene to show the brand in place.

  • Brand identity
  • Menu design
  • Printed collateral
  • Branded items
  • Truck concept
  • Photo composite
View project
I Am cover: a face split down the middle between a vector-style illustration labeled The Designer and a photograph labeled The Person

Editorial Design · Personal Publication

I Am

The Designer · The Person

I Am is a personal publication split between “The Designer” and “The Person.” The cover pairs a vector-style self-portrait with a photograph, and each chapter—humble, a music fanatic, a space junkie, determined, a designer—opens with its own typographic treatment.

View project
Global Carbon Emissions infographic poster with bar charts, area and line graphs and circular diagrams in gray, black and orange, arranged under four questions

Information Design · Data Visualization

Global Carbon Emissions

A large-format infographic poster built around four questions: How does the United States contribute? How does the world compare? How does nature play a role? How are we fixing the problem? Each section answers with its own set of bar charts, area and line graphs and circular diagrams, held together by a restrained gray, black and orange palette.

View project
Exhibition wall of Hip-Hop Principles panels, including an Elements of Hip Hop periodic table, a table of contents and photographs of the HAVIN FUN, UNITY and PEACE lettering
Yellow wooden letters spelling UNITY hung across a chained and padlocked metal gate
Blue wooden letters spelling PEACE set along the bottom of a rusted wall covered in spray paint

Editorial Design · Typography · Exhibition

Hip-Hop Principles

Hip-Hop Principles is my thesis project, shown as a wall of editorial panels alongside the printed book. The panels include an Elements of Hip Hop periodic table, a table of contents, feature and chapter layouts, and photographs of dimensional lettering—HAVIN FUN, UNITY and PEACE—placed and shot on location.

View project

Between design and making

Letters and objects you can pick up.

Some projects move off the screen: dimensional lettering and handmade pieces that use the same eye for form and spacing.

Yellow wooden letters spelling UNITY hung across a chained and padlocked metal gate
Blue wooden letters spelling PEACE set along the bottom of a rusted wall covered in spray paint

Experimental Typography · Hands-On Design

Dimensional Typography

Painted wooden letterforms placed and photographed where the words carry meaning.

View project

Front of the Bamboo Television: a bark and twig frame around a screen showing an owl on a branch, with two wooden knobs below

Mixed-Media Art · Object Design

Bamboo Television

A handmade art object built from bamboo and other natural materials to resemble a television.

View project

Coming soon

Illustration · Poster Design

More Personal Work

Vector self-portrait, thesis exhibition poster and a letterform horse.

Images coming soon

The restored dresser with its framed mirror: black painted case and base, dark-stained drawer fronts and matte black hardware

Furniture Restoration

Two-Tone Dresser

A tired dresser with missing drawers, rebuilt and refinished in black and a deep stain.

View project

After: eagle bell repainted with a brown and white eagle, American flag and silver bell

Decorative Restoration

Eagle Bell

A rusted cast-iron eagle bell, cleaned up and hand-painted back to full color.

View project