Donald Deskey was born in Blue Earth, Minnesota in 1894. In 1912 he left for California with a high school diploma. After a series of jobs, a stint in the army, and attendance at The University of California at Berkeley to study architecture and painting he began working in advertising in 1920, first in Chicago then New York.
In 1925 he visited the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in France and the Bauhaus in Germany. He came back to New York in 1926 committed to the Modern movement.