structural:reformatting, quality:correction, stylistic:tone
Visual artist

In 1943, Ray started working at D.J. Keymer, a British advertising agency, as a junior visualiser. Here he was trained in Indian commercial art under artist Annada Munshi, the then-Art Director of D.J. Keymer. Although he liked visual design (graphic design) and he was mostly treated well, there was tension between the British and Indian employees of the firm. The British were better paid, and Ray felt that "the clients were generally stupid". In 1943, Ray started a second job for the Signet Press, a new publishing house started by D.K. Gupta. Gupta asked Ray to create book cover designs for the company and gave him complete artistic freedom. Ray established himself as a commercial illustrator, becoming a leading Indian typographer and book-jacket designer.

Ray designed covers for many books, including Jibanananda Das 's Banalata Sen and Rupasi Bangla, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay 's Chander Pahar, Jim Corbett 's Maneaters of Kumaon, and Jawaharlal Nehru 's Discovery of India. He worked on a children's version of Pather Panchali, a classic Bengali novel by Bandyopadhyay, renamed Aam Antir Bhepu (The Mango-Seed Whistle). Ray designed the cover and illustrated the book and was deeply influenced by the work. He used it as the subject of his first film and featured his illustrations as shots in it.

Ray befriended the American soldiers stationed in Calcutta during World War II, who kept him informed about the latest American films showing in the city. He came to know an RAF employee, Norman Clare, who shared Ray's passion for films, chess, and Western classical music. Ray was a regular in the addas (freestyle casual conversations) at Coffee House, where several intellectuals frequented. He formed lasting associations with some of his compatriots there, such as Bansi Chandragupta (celebrated art director), Kamal Kumar Majumdar (polymath and author of stylish prose), Radha Prasad Gupta, and Chidananda Das Gupta (film critic). Along with Chidananda Dasgupta and others, Ray founded the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. They screened many foreign films, many of which Ray watched and seriously studied, including several American and Russian films. The use of Indian music and dancing in the 1948 Indian film Kalpana (transl. Imagination), directed by the celebrated dancer Uday Shankar, had an impact on Ray. In 1949, Ray married Bijoya Das, his first cousin and long-time sweetheart. The couple had a son, Sandip Ray, who also became a film director. In the same year, French director Jean Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film The River. Ray helped him to find locations in the countryside. Ray told Renoir about his idea of filming Pather Panchali, which had long been on his mind, and Renoir encouraged him in the project.

In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at their headquarters. During his six months there, Ray watched 99 films, including Alexander Dovzhenko 's Earth (1930) and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939). However, the film that had the most profound effect on him was the neorealist film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) (1948) by Vittorio De Sica. Ray later said that he walked out of the theatre determined to become a filmmaker.