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Gardner Creative WorksDesign • Web • Restoration • Resale

Portfolio — David Gardner

A designer who builds.

Print, pixels, and hands-on projects. I work across graphic design, web design, restoration, and resale—combining visual thinking, practical problem-solving, and creativity.

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Elevate Your Turkey Day poster for Fine Wine & Good Spirits: a holiday table toast photo, a cocktail of the month recipe, an Every Plate Needs a Partner pairing chart, gift card and DIY panels, and the Happier Holidays ribbon
The dresser split down the middle: on the left, the worn honey-toned original with empty drawer openings; on the right, the restored piece with a black case, dark-stained drawers and black hardware
Copper Creek Plumbing & Drain desktop homepage with navy hero, headline and Request Service button

What I do

Featured work

Selected Projects

A mix of graphic design, web design, restoration, and hands-on creative work.

Cover of SHIFT: The History of Signs, with multicolored sign-style lettering and a band of sign photographs
Explore the Gallery spread with a grid of vintage and neon sign photographs
Full-bleed spread of curved rainbow neon tubes
Close-up of the repeating SHIFT lettering pattern in red, black and green

Editorial Design · Typography

SHIFT

A publication on the history of signs. Its handmade wooden lettering carries from the printed page into a repeating pattern and a cover.

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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 illustrations
Animated 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 button
Embrace 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

Commercial Advertising · Production Design

Agency Campaign Work

Ads and production work I created while freelancing for a marketing agency, including campaigns for Live! Casino, Cooper, and Fine Wine & Good Spirits.

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Copper Creek Plumbing & Drain desktop homepage with navy hero, headline and Request Service button
Mobile service list with a persistent Call Now and Request Service bar

Web Design · Concept

Copper Creek Plumbing & Drain

A concept website for a South Jersey plumbing company, built around one goal: making it easy for a homeowner who needs help to take action. Clear service information, a prominent emergency number, and a responsive layout designed to work especially well on a phone.

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The printed piece standing partly opened at an angle, showing how its narrow panels fold against each other

Editorial Design · Print Design · Information Design

MFA Creative Writing Spotlight

A multi-panel printed foldout for the Rutgers–Camden MFA in Creative Writing, with students on one side and professors on the other.

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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

Brand Identity · Concept

Waggin' Wheels

A full brand for a food truck that serves meals for dogs: logo, menu, packaging and truck graphics, all with the same playful voice.

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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

Editorial Design · Typography · Exhibition

Hip-Hop Principles

My thesis on hip-hop culture, shown as exhibition panels, a printed book and three-dimensional lettering.

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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

A personal publication about the designer and the person, built from bold typographic chapter openers.

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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 poster that organizes emissions data around four plain questions.

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Also in the portfolio: Bamboo Television, Dimensional Typography, Garden Creature, Eagle Bell.

Browse all design work

Web design for small businesses

Need a website for your business? Let's talk.

I’m a graphic designer building my web design practice, and I’m taking on my first small-business websites. You get clear services, easy ways for customers to reach you, and layouts that work just as well on a phone, along with a designer’s eye for how it all looks.

Start a website project See the Copper Creek concept
Copper Creek services section showing eight numbered service tiles
Copper Creek homepage on mobile with stacked headline and full-width call-to-action buttons

Restoration

Worn, overlooked, then useful again.

I enjoy taking worn, overlooked, or outdated pieces and finding a way to make them useful and interesting again.

See restoration work
After: the full dresser seen straight on, with a black painted case and base, dark-stained drawer fronts and matte black hardware
Before: worn honey-toned dresser in a garage with two empty drawer openings
BeforeAfter
Drag or use arrow keys to compareBefore / After

Resale

Interesting finds, carefully presented.

Sourcing, researching, photographing, presenting and listing interesting items—the same eye for presentation, applied to the objects themselves.

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Framed oil painting of a snowy mountain, pine forest and waterfall in a gilt frame
Framed landscape painting
Ornamental wooden armchair with a carved backrest, scrolled arms and a plaid upholstered seat
Ornamental wooden chair
David Gardner seated in front of a wall of his exhibited graphic design panels, with his printed book on a pedestal beside him

About

I design things people use, then build them.

I’m a graphic designer with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and 10 years of experience across print, editorial, advertising, and the web. My professional work includes campaigns produced through agency and freelance work for brands including Live! Casino, Cooper, and Fine Wine & Good Spirits. I’m now also building clear, practical websites for small businesses.

I restore furniture and resell interesting finds, too. To me, it all comes from the same instinct: look closely, figure out what’s not working, and find a better way to make it useful and present it well.

More about me