Andrew Gardner
Curiosity has always shaped how I see the world. Growing up, drawing helped me observe and understand the things around me. While studying fine art at Brigham Young University–Idaho, I discovered design thinking and a way to connect creativity with solving problems for people. Since then, I’ve led design across 16 consumer and enterprise products, bringing that same curiosity to everything I build.
Leader in the AI frontier
Applying co-intelligent solutions to real user needs.
With a foundation and certification from NN/g in AI product strategy and design, I focus on applying co-intelligent solutions that meet real user needs, not just implementing technology because it’s impressive. I use frameworks and mental models like Jobs to Be Done to keep that work grounded in the problems people need to solve.
Forward-Deployed
Experimenting with AI tools to understand more deeply and deliver beyond specs.
I don’t wait for a perfect spec. I get hands-on with AI tools to prototype, test, and learn how the technology actually behaves, so I can see what’s possible, what’s risky, and what the team should build next. That curiosity keeps me close to engineering and lets me deliver work that goes beyond the original brief.
0→1 Solutions
Turning ambiguous problems into live products with meaningful business outcomes.
Through years of working with large-scale companies and early-stage startups, I’ve learned how design decisions shape business outcomes, whether that’s reducing risk, growing a user base, or sharpening a competitive edge. I take ambiguous problems, frame them clearly, and carry them all the way to a shipped product.
Design Craft
Exploring broadly, testing deeply, and finding the gaps before they get expensive.
Great solutions are made up of a lot of small decisions, and the wrong ones compound quickly. I hold every decision to three questions: is it elegant, is it validated, and is it marketable? Exploring broadly and testing deeply is how I find the gaps before they get expensive.
Cross-functional Collaborator
Building alignment and trust so everyone can contribute to better solutions.
Good design is iterative by nature, and the journey should be as rewarding as the destination. Through constructive collaboration, candor, and kindness, I build alignment across product, engineering, and stakeholders so everyone can contribute to a better solution.
My Design Pillars
These pillars are the principles I’ve built over years of shipping real products across complex organizations. They shape every exploration, every tradeoff, and every conversation I bring to a team.
Broad, Deep, and Fast Explorations
The design actions with the most leverage happen early, at lo-fidelity. I push explorations to be broad enough to surface unexpected directions and deep enough to stress-test the ones worth pursuing. Moving fast at low fidelity lets ideas flow without the friction of polish, so the best ones rise to the top before anyone has invested too much in the wrong direction.
Proactive Problem Solving
Great designers develop a kind of third eye: a habit of spotting gaps, edge cases, and unintended outcomes before they become expensive. That instinct comes from experience, but more than anything it comes from staying curious and asking the right questions of the right people. I engage with engineering early to sort out feasibility, with stakeholders and SMEs to understand market and business context, and with customer-facing teams to build an accurate picture of real user scenarios. I test my own assumptions, and I’m never afraid to say “I don’t know,” as long as I follow it with “let’s find out.”
Design Excellence & Taste
Over years of practice, I’ve developed a high bar for what a quality product actually looks and feels like. To me, design excellence is measurable, and it comes down to three principles.
Velocity alone is not a sign of quality. Output without outcomes is waste. A great product ships at the right time, in the right form, without sacrificing the craft that makes it worth building.
A solution that works but frustrates is only half a solution. The best products solve a real user need and leave people feeling like the experience was made specifically for them.
Quality at scale means today’s decisions don’t create debt tomorrow. Consistency builds trust, inclusivity broadens reach, and extensibility lets the product grow without breaking.
Focused on Outcomes
Design decisions become subjective when the room is focused on what people want rather than what the product needs to achieve. I anchor every design decision to clearly defined objectives and measurable indicators, so that progress can be tested, not debated. Removing subjectivity this way doesn’t slow the process down. It speeds it up, because everyone is evaluating against the same standard.
A Partner in the Process
Great collaboration doesn’t happen by accident. It has to be designed, just like everything else. I build it through genuine curiosity about how others see the world, consistent respect for every perspective in the room, and a commitment to making the work environment feel safe enough for people to contribute freely. Whether in a structured workshop or a casual Slack thread, I show up the same way: listening first, inviting ideas openly, and never treating my lens as the only valid one.
The skills that make collaboration work aren’t soft. They’re deliberate and pragmatic: knowing when to push back and when to defer, when to drive alignment and when to let the room breathe. The quality of how a team works together directly shapes the quality of what they build.
Idea Democracy
The best idea in the room doesn’t always come from the designer. An effective designer knows this, embraces it, and builds environments where great ideas can come from anyone. I facilitate workshops and creative sessions that are open, collaborative, and psychologically safe: spaces where people feel free to contribute without fear of judgment. I’m a facilitator of ideas, not a gatekeeper of them. Winning as a team is the only kind of winning that matters.