David Roberts was born in Manchester in 1983, into a family of artists and engineers — a mix that made graphic design an almost inevitable path. In the early 1990s, he gained access to a computer loaded with professional design software. From there, he taught himself how to create digital art, mostly for fun, while picking up enough CAD skills to make school design projects unnecessarily complex.

Holding dual citizenship between England and the United States, Roberts moved to Southern California in 2000 by himself. He walked up and down the boulevards with a digital art portfolio in hand, introducing himself to anyone who might need design work. Flower shops and chiropractors were polite but unconvinced, who'd have thought? A photography studio, however, offered him a chance—largely due to persistence. Before his interview, a friend asked if he even knew what retouching was. He didn’t, but figured Photoshop would cover it. Fortunately, it did. By the end of the interview, he had the job and a new lesson: “Learn how to use a Mac; you’re in America now.”

Roberts’ role quickly expanded to include graphic design. A few years later, he moved into a proper design studio and realised that a formal degree might help if he wanted to make it into an ad agency. He did, working his way to Senior Designer in an agency, then as an in-house Art Director, before founding his own full-service design studio in 2006. Over the next decade, he grew it into a small but thriving business serving both local clients and subcontracted work for Fortune 100 companies.