Meet Landscape Designer David Gray
An artist and filmmaker bringing creative direction to outdoor environments.
Design-Led Landscape Design
DGD Landscape Designs based in Rye, New York is led by David Gray, a landscape designer with certifications from Cornell University (emphasis on woody plants), Emory University, and the New York Botanical Gardens (Landscape Design History)—combined with decades of experience as an award-winning filmmaker, artist, and creative director.
A Foundation in Design and Composition
Gray graduated cum laude from Syracuse University with a BFA in Design. That foundation in visual composition launched a career in advertising as a creative director at some of the industry's most respected agencies, which led to filmmaking and commercial directing, where his work has earned recognition from Cannes to The One Show to a Director's Guild of America nomination, with projects in MOMA's permanent collection and lists of the most influential advertising of the past four decades.
From Creative Direction to Landscape Design
The connection to landscape work began early. During college summers, Gray worked hands-on for a landscaping company, developing an appreciation for how outdoor spaces are built and how materials interact over time. What started as physical labor grew into a lifelong fascination with plants, form, and composition, an interest that shaped his personal spaces and eventually his professional practice.
While he continues to direct films and commercials, Gray pursued formal landscape design education to deepen that early foundation. The result is DGD Landscape Designs, a collaborative practice that brings together arborists, engineers, and skilled craftspeople to create thoughtfully composed outdoor environments.
An Artistic Practice Across Mediums
Gray also maintains an active painting practice focused on contemporary abstract works, bold, gestural pieces on large-scale canvases and wood panels for private collectors. Landscape design offers a complementary opportunity: working at a different scale with living materials that change, mature, and evolve with the seasons.
The through-line across all his work remains consistent, understanding what a space needs to communicate, then orchestrating the right elements and collaborators to execute that vision with precision and craft.
