emma gardner

Award-winning designer Emma Gardner, chief designer and principal at emma gardner design, has been creating striking and vibrant rugs for consumers, interior designers and architects since 2002. After a successful career as an editor and illustrator, Emma Gardner applies her celebrated sense of color and composition to creating original rugs that are available through showrooms in 21 North American markets.

Her designs have appeared in leading design and fashion magazines including Elle Décor, House Beautiful, Interior Design, Better Homes & Gardens, Traditional Home, Elle, Glamour, Dwell and Luxe Magazine.

Gardner has received Interior Design magazine's Best of Year, IIDEX/Neocon Innovation and Neocon Gold Awards for her rug and fabric designs. Her work adorns some of the best hotels and finest homes in the world in addition to premier health care facilities including the Mayo Clinic. 

Prior to her career as a designer, Emma Gardner was the Editor-in-Chief of PHYS.COM, Condé Nast's online Health and Fitness magazine. Before that she served as Managing Editor of Better Health and Producer of the Food Channel for publicly traded iVillage.com. In 1996, she founded, designed and edited her own "e-zine" for young women, Smarty-Pants.

Gardner's handmade book, I View, was exhibited at Parson's Gimbell Library as part of a group show. In addition to her own books, she has created cover art and illustrations for numerous publishers, books and publications including Villard Books, Random House, Scholastic Inc., and The New York Times.

Her early education was at public schools, including New York's Stuyvesant High School. She earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University and did graduate work at Columbia University in English Literature. Additionally, she studied textile design at F.I.T. and painting and drawing at Cooper Union in New York.

Emma Gardner was born in Kyoto, Japan, and grew up in Wilton and Westport, Connecticut, before moving to New York City at eleven. She currently lives and works in Petaluma, CA with her husband, who is president of the company, their daughter and son.