Born in Toronto, Canada in 1960, David’s family moved to Vancouver in 1970, settling in the Whytecliff area of West Vancouver. After high school, David moved to Edmonton, chasing the oil boom in the late 70’s. He never made it to the oil patch, instead, he embarked on a seven year career as a carpenter. Moving back to BC in 1982, he became tired of banging nails in the muddy, wet winters of BCs Lower Mainland, so he ventured back to school to study graphic design at Emily Carr College of Art & Design, graduating in the class of 1988.
In his fourth year of studies, he began working on non-profit and cultural posters for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, New Orchestra Workshop and other jazz groups. David founded Ion Design with former partner Rod Roodenburg, directly after college — which initiated a four year post graduate degree in the business school of hard knocks.
In 2023, Ion celebrated its 35th year in business. Spanning five decades, the firm specializes in place branding, and brand activation for communities through civic engagement, strategy, behavioural change campaigns, wayfinding and websites. Now co-led with business and life partner Kaoru, Ion is a small, thriving, firm with a full time staff of six. Their work reaches out and touches audiences in smart, creative ways, and through this reach, they contribute to building strong communities and influencing positive change. The firm especially enjoys working with smaller places where they can make a significant impact in raising the bar and creating sustainable, meaningful change.
Ion’s clients span Western Canada and the US. Primarily in the civic space, but also with a wide variety of business, government, hospitality, cultural, and academic institutions. Their clients include Saskatoon, Vancouver, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, North Vancouver, Squamish, Castlegar, among many other cities, and their long-standing client, Bluewater Grill Restaurants in California and Arizona. The firm enjoys an outstanding reputation for their work and has received hundreds of awards – including numerous international design awards. Articles on the company have appeared in Print, Applied Arts, Step-by-Step, Studio, How Magazine and Design Shanghai Magazine and their work is part of the National Gallery of Canada.
In 1994, David was named among the “Top 40 Under 40” business people in Vancouver by Business in Vancouver. In 1996, David was named to the Applied Arts Magazine editorial board, and served in that capacity until 2000. He judged the National Post Annual Report Awards three years running, and has since judged the Applied Arts Awards several times. In 2001 David was named to the sessional faculty of Emily Carr University and taught at ECU for three years.
David got involved in the GDC (DesCan) in 1991, helping to plan and execute BC’s awards programme Graphex ‘93. By June of 1993, he was president of the BC Chapter. After being handed the box, he realized he had inherited a Chapter that was in disarray — financially in the red, no executive job descriptions, few procedures in place to ensure proper running of the Chapter, and waning membership. Along with his completely fresh executive, David set his goal to get the administration of the Chapter in order, and at the end of his second term as president, the Chapter was well in the black, and new executives had tools at their disposal to run the Chapter effectively.
During his term, he was instrumental in lobbying the Worker’s Compensation Board (Worksafe BC) to lower it’s rate for graphic designers — who had been lumped in with printers — collectively saving British Columbia designers hundreds of thousands of dollars. He wrote and received a grant for the first GDC website in 1995, and implemented the GDC listserv in 1997. The BC website grew to be the National site in 1997, and was redeveloped in 2001 by his firm and their content management software Smallbox Software to be a true intranet — effectively changing the way the GDC does business forever.
David was a member of the GDC National Council for eleven years. Over his tenure on the National he participated in the development of the Elgin O’Connor report which resulted in the formation of the National Secretariat in Ottawa, and the hiring of an Executive Director. He also participated in lengthy constitutional changes, and the Fort Garry agreement outlining the relationship of then newly accredited RGD Ontario to the National. His two-year term as National Communications VP was challenging, with the advent of accreditation in Ontario, and subsequent withdrawal of well over two thirds of total national GDC membership, had choked the National financially — making it difficult to print and distribute anything to members.
David became National President in 1998 — his goal was to complete the GDC Members’ Kit that had been started in 1994 and was a logical conclusion to what he had begun with the BC Chapter. This project was finally finished in 2001 with the help of Fellow, Matt Warburton. During his presidency, David changed the constitutional requirement of Biennial General Meetings to Annual General Meetings — helping to ensure that more gets accomplished during a given executive term. He also initiated a new structure for AGMs where the National council reviews Chapter reports prior to the meeting — freeing up a full day for brainstorming new initiatives. David continues to support the GDC (DesCan) through mentorships and annual financial support of the DesCan Foundation.
In 2000 Emily Carr University presented David with an Emily Award — its highest honour — for lifetime career achievement. In 2001 the GDC awarded David Fellowship in the Society for his contributions to Canadian design.
Riding the Pine Homeware was born in 2015 through David and Kaoru’s desire to get back to creating art and craft. The company offers beautifully crafted, sustainable Cottagecore Canadiana products for the home, the active, and for lovers of art and craft. Their products use original design, photography and illustration on textiles, wood and paper. They lovingly hand screen and sew all their textiles at their home in North Vancouver, using fabrics like hemp that is durable, sustainable, supple and antibacterial. They use every inch, wasting little. After seven years as a hobby, Riding the Pine was incorporated in 2021.