Ray began his paper-engineering career in his native England in 1979. Coercing illustrator friend Korky Paul into working on their first pop-up book they embarked upon "The Crocodile and The Dumpertruck: A Reptilian Guide To London". At breakneck speed they ended up at the 1979 Frankfurt Book Fair with literary agent Sheri Safran. By the end of the fair Sheri had sold the rights to "Crocodile" to publishers around the world and went on to form Sadie Fields Productions.
Deciding this was the right direction, Ray quit his job as an art director with Avon Cosmetics and left the glamor world to work at home designing pop-up books.
Ray and Korky collaborated on several other books after the publication of Crocodile including "Action Cats, Doors, Nursery Pops" and "Math Pops."
In 1985 Ray won England’s Smarties Prize for Children’s Books Award for "Watch It Work: The Car," the first in a series of interactive books, followed by "Watch It Work: The Train, and Watch It Work: The Plane."
Between 1980 and 1990 Ray designed 24 interactive books for children. For a complete list click here.
In 1986 Ray followed his true love to San Francisco and opened a company called "Paper Creations" specializing in pop-ups for advertising.
In 1991, distracted by the arrival of the Macintosh computer, Ray formed "Ray Marshall Design" and took a “brief 20 year break” from pop-ups to focus on graphic design.
Encouraged by his family to design another pop-up book Ray set to work on "The Castaway Pirates." "The Castaway Pirates," published by Chronicle Books in 2008, was his twenty-fifth book, and the first one he has written.
Since then Ray has produced the "Paper Blossoms" series of books for Chronicle and created many other pop-up pieces for marketing and commercial sale.
Ray lives with his same love (now wife) and their two daughters in the San Francisco Bay Area.