After graduating, Byrd moved to New York City where in early 1968, work was started for Bill Graham for venues in the new Fillmore East Ballroom in Manhattan's East Village. Byrd was reportedly hired on the spot after showing his portfolio to Bill Graham and signed on as the exclusive poster and program designer, beginning with a poster for the upcoming Traffic event. In the period 1968 to 1973, he and Fantasy Unlimited created posters for Jimi Hendrix, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, Traffic, and Bill Graham favorite the Grateful Dead. In 1969 Byrd created the original poster for Woodstock, ultimately unused once the festival had to be relocated. He designed posters for notable stage musicals including Follies, Godspell, The Robber Bridegroom, The Grand Tour, The Survival of St. Joan, Jesus Christ Superstar, Little Shop of Horrors, and others. Byrd worked with The Who for their rock opera Tommy. From 1970 to 1979 Byrd taught at the Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. In 1981 Byrd came to Los Angeles to work on the Van Halen World Tour. After that he did more poster creations in and around Los Angeles for, among others, The Mark Taper Forum, The Ahmanson Theatre, The Doolittle Theatre, The Pasadena Playhouse. From 1984 to 1986 he was Art Director of the national gay news magazine The Advocate. From 1991 to 2002, Byrd was Senior Illustrator at Warner Brothers Creative Services, creating illustrations, backgrounds and style guides for all the Looney Tunes and Hanna–Barbera characters. His other tasks included working with writer J. K. Rowling on the first three books to make a visual cornerstone for the Harry Potter films that were to follow.
Today
Byrd lives in Los Angeles with his partner of 28 years, Jolino Beserra, a noted Mosaic Artist.
Accolades and awards
In 1973, he, along with several other prominent illustrators, received a Grammy Award for the album design and packaging of Tommy. In 2007 the Ringling College of Art and Design presented a retrospective of the work of Byrd's work. Many of David's works are now collectibles. The poster that Byrd created for Bill Graham's Fillmore East, for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was voted #8 in the Top 25 Rock Posters by Billboard Magazine.
