Some people find their creative voice in a classroom.
I found mine on East 91st Street.
Photographer | Designer | Founder
Toronto, Ontario
T H E S T O R Y _
I’m David Lunan — photographer, designer, and the person behind Ninety First Studios.
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, on a block that had more visual texture, raw energy, and human story per square foot than most people encounter in a lifetime. The contrast, the movement, the realness of it — that shaped the way I see things long before I ever picked up a camera. When I eventually did, it felt less like learning something new and more like finding the right language for something I already understood.
NFS is named after that street. East 91st. The beginning of everything.
T H E S T U D I O _
Ninety First Studios has been building toward this for a long time — through years of freelance design and web work, a decade of street photography, a chapter spent directing my own visual presence as a musician and collaborating with artists, photographers, and videographers who taught me what it actually means to create with intention.
When the time was right, it became its own thing. A focused, photography-led creative studio built around one idea: that the organizations doing the most meaningful work often have the weakest visual presence — and that gap is something that can be closed.
At its core, NFS is built on direct creative relationships — the person you speak to is the person doing the work. No unnecessary layers between your vision and its execution. That’s not a limitation — it’s the model. And as the studio grows, that standard of hands-on, intentional creative partnership stays at the centre of everything we build.
T H E A P P R O A CH _
Every project begins with the same question: what do we want the person on the other side of this to feel? Trust. Connection. Pride. Recognition. The emotion comes first. The design, the photograph, the content — those are how we get there.
Most creators start with the product. I start with the person consuming it.
That comes from understanding what it actually takes to build something — the hours behind a performance, the discipline behind a business, the belief it takes to put your work in front of people and ask them to care about it. I’ve lived that as a musician, as a creator, as someone who has always found a way to make things regardless of circumstance. That reverence for the work behind the work is what I bring to every client relationship.
My aesthetic is raw. Not unfinished — intentional. It shows up in the photographs I take and the layouts I build. In the fonts I choose — ones that carry weight without announcing themselves. In colour palettes that feel grounded, not decorative. In copy that says exactly what it needs to and nothing more. In websites that don’t perform professionalism — they embody it.
This isn’t a style I chose. It’s the result of a decade of street photography, of learning to find the frame inside the chaos, of understanding that the most compelling image — and the most compelling brand — is almost always the most honest one.
T H E W O R K _
The clients that bring out the best work are the ones whose currency is connection.
Dance studios where the community of dancers, parents, and families is the whole point. Wellness organizations doing real grassroots work with real people in real circumstances. Artists and founders who believe in what they’re building and need the visual presence to match.
These are the people I understand instinctively — because what they’re doing is about human connection first, and everything else second. That’s where NFS operates best.
I’ve seen what happens when the right visual system meets that kind of organization. A dance community seeing their hard work reflected back in a recital flyer and feeling proud enough to share it. A wellness team whose website finally communicates the weight and importance of what they do every day. That’s the outcome I’m working toward on every project — not just something that looks good, but something that makes the people behind it feel seen.