In addition to Soviet-era photographs, posters, and other materials, his collection included items related to the Spanish Civil War, Maoist China, the Weimar Republic, and American labour organizations.
As a student, King assisted Fior with his poster work for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and on the design of the magazine Peace News.
[3] While working on a feature for The Sunday Times in 1970, King made his first trip to the Soviet Union to collect materials on Vladimir Lenin, which were plentiful.
He originated the red-and-yellow arrow logo for the Anti-Nazi League and designed posters for Rock Against Racism concerts and marches.
[2] King devoted his later career to uncovering and chronicling the art of the Soviet and the Constructivist periods, with a focus on the doctoring of photographs and the accompanying process of historical revisionism.
[3] King’s book became the basis of an audiovisual collaboration with composer Michael Nyman, who created a soundtrack to The Commissar Vanishes, which was first performed at the Barbican Centre, London, in 1999.
[3] The Tate acquired the David King Collection, which includes more than 150,000 items "relating to the Russian revolutionary period, the Soviet Union and communist China" in June 2016.
[4] In 2020, Yale University Press published Rick Poynor's book David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian.
Poynor and Eye magazine art director Simon Esteron also set up a website in support of the book; the site contains designs by King from his private archives.