How Big Head Bob grew into a global mental health brand | Arts & Culture

David Bradley officially started the positive messaging and mental health focused brand “Big Head Bob” in 2020, but the Big Head Bob character and its origins track all the way back to Bradley’s childhood. 

Bradley recalled drumming as a child. His mother and grandfather were gifted artists and illustrators and, while he did not consider himself particularly talented in this area, he loved to create art for fun. 

He began drawing an early version of the modern Big Head Bob character when he was young, recalling, “as big as the page was, that’s how big his head was.” 

The  habit of lightheartedly drawing this character followed him into college and into his post-graduate career. 

Three months into the pandemic, his nephew was born and Bradley was motivated to create a book about this character for him, despite the fact that he had never written a book before. He later shared the project on social media and was eventually asked by a teacher to do a school visit featuring his work. 

“After I went to the visit, the school tweeted out, ‘Thank you Big Head Bob for coming to our school,’” Bradley said. “Three more schools asked me to come and do a visit…It just kind of snowballed from there.” 

Bradley’s creativity eventually evolved into a story around the Big Head Bob character, who learns to understand that having a big head, which he typically thought of as a weakness, was part of embracing his authentic self. 

“I realized that maybe his big head is his weakness, and he’s learning to transform it into a strength, Bradley said. “That’s how I got the concept of the character, but also the title of the first book, which is ‘The Adventures of Big Head Bob –Transform Your Weakness into Strength.’” 

After nine months of work, the first book was published in January 2021. Big Head Bob now has several published books, some of them even in different languages. 

Turning blogs into a book 

What started as blog entries on mental health from college students at various universities across the country, eventually turned into “Surviving College: Navigating Education and Mental Health,” published in February 2025.

“I now have a platform, a safe space for people to talk about something in their life, which you don’t generally get to do, which is crazy to me,” Bradley said. “It’s therapeutic. It’s interesting. The way that I phrase this project is, write this for the younger version of yourself, or a teenager, or someone that can maybe learn from it.”

The character and the brand caters to all ages, from kids, to parents, high schoolers, college students and beyond. According to the website, Big Head Bob’s mission statement is “bridging cultures & communities through social-emotional learning & mindful education.” The character’s head is a metaphor for physical or mental differences that impact and shape a person’s experiences. 

Before her senior year, KateAnn McLaughlin, a spring 2025 University of Georgia graduate, applied to be a marketing intern at Big Head Bob, beginning the role in June 2024. 

“I was looking for a marketing internship and as I was reading through his page and learning more about what Big Head Bob is, I realized that was a really important topic and I just thought it would be a really good opportunity and experience.” 

“Surviving College: Navigating Education and Mental Health” was one of the first big projects she and Bradley worked on together. The beginnings of the book started in 2022 through an anonymous blog series Bradley started with student interns from across the country. McLaughlin initially planned to write one of these blog entries for the website, but she, the interns and Bradley eventually decided to turn it into a published book. 

“He started the blog series because he was working with college interns and he realized that they have a lot of stories with mental health and education to share, and so they wanted to add something to the website and they decided to start an anonymous blog series with all of their interns,” McLaughlin said. 

Expanding Big Head Bob digitally 

During her internship, McLaughlin worked in social media marketing and helped with nationwide university visits. She also assisted in the then-new collaboration with NASA and the plush series they released in fall of 2024. 

“It was really interesting to write my experiences and share that on the website,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a little scary at first to realize that so many people are going to know those things, but after reading everyone else’s blog series you realize there are so many people going through similar experiences, and it’s really refreshing to hear that.” 

McLaughlin worked with Bradley until she graduated and got her first post-graduate, with plans to attend law school in the future. 

“She’s [McLaughlin] just incredible, and I mean her name’s on the book, “ Bradley said. “She helped design the book, so that’s pretty rare, and her name will forever be on that book.” 

The most recent blog entry in progress for the website features perspectives from a fraternity and sorority member, and their similar or opposing experiences. The pieces go back and forth between the two authors.

“The feedback I’ve gotten from these articles that are in the book is powerful,” Bradley said. “Those types of movements of  people’s emotions like ‘I wish I read this when I was younger,’ they’re really sweet comments on a lot of these blogs too.” 

Big Head Bob recently hit 250,000 YouTube subscribers in August, a large milestone, which has been four years in the making. Bradley believes that the utilization of YouTube shorts was the main push towards recent progress. YouTube content has also been monetized since early August.

The brand has hosted events on Roblox, drawing 30 to 50 people in the game at a time. Upon joining the game, attendees’ avatars take on a Big Head Bob skin, giving the game its name, “Become Big Head Bob.” This online space has been created through the Roblox Community Builder internship program. 

With professional experience in Las Vegas hospitality, public relations management, VIP services and marketing, Bradley said he has learned to excel at working together with others, knowing how to “connect the dots and how to outsource and wrap a bow around it.” 

“I can’t do any of this stuff myself, and I have to just [have] no ego on the project,” Bradley said. “The first assignment that I have with every intern is focused on opportunities. Look at my social, look at my page, look at anything. Write down a list of everything that stinks and how we can improve it. That leads to like, three or four tasks for us to do together.” 

When Bradley hires a new student intern, he shares the blog section with them and asks if they are interested in expanding on it with their own personal experiences with mental health and education. Many of them do, and so the intern program, blog posts and “Surviving College: Navigating Education and Mental Health” keeps growing. 

“There are all these new light bulb moments [and] I see that when people are writing these for themselves,” Bradley said. 

As “Surviving College: Navigating Education and Mental Health” continues to gain more interest and recognition, Big Head Bob aims to continue supporting its readers and viewers in their mental health journeys throughout all stages of life. 

“I would just hope that other students, high school and college, realize that so many other people are going through very similar experiences, and this book touches on rejection, failure, abuse, addiction and a bunch of other mental health experiences,” McLaughlin said. “I think my hope would just be that they realize that they’re not going through these things alone.”