Meet Annica Lydenberg | Creative Director and Mural Painter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Annica Lydenberg and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Annica, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I have always been a cautious person – shy, afraid of the spotlight, overly anxious about pleasing others. I didn’t celebrate risk. Goals of kindness, hard work and staying in my lane were what I thought mattered most to me, not bravery. I worked very hard, asked for very little and I was satisfied with that. It wasn’t until some friends introduced me to rock climbing in my late 30s that I learned how to become less afraid of failure and how to take risks. At first I would only climb routes I thought I could successfully complete, more of the same. But over time I began to go for holds that I might not make, I felt my fingers slip off of the wall as I fell. And it was the best feeling I had ever had. I started to feel more confident everywhere in my life and my career.
I wish I had learned to embrace risk earlier in life.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m Annica Lydenberg and I run Dirty Bandits, a design studio based out of Brooklyn, NY. I have a deep love of typography and endless curiousity about new mediums and ways of creating type. From hand drawn typography I began to explore sign painting and eventually I started painting murals about 10 years ago. I enjoy client work a great deal and prefer to work with companies and projects that have a mission of social good. I work everyone from small businesses to large companies like Adidas, Nike, Scholastic, Harper Collins doing branding work, packaging. campaigns and book covers. My work is both analog and digital, the variety gives me great excitement.

Mural painting is what lead to my most fulfilling project, the You Are Not Alone Murals project. I started this in 2019 with my best friend Samantha Schutz, author of the memoir, I Don’t Want To Be Crazy. She received letters from readers saying “Your book made me feel less alone.” I wanted to carry this message through with my work, painting murals. So I began painting this on walls in Brooklyn in 2019. I connected with other artists, inviting them to join me in spreading this message. We all paint in the same color palette and paint the same phrase “You Are Not Alone”. To date over 80 murals have been painted around the world, in different languages, all united by this simple, but powerful message.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, I live in Brooklyn and my favorite time is a Friday night out in Coney Island! Coney Island is so wildly unique, it’s part beach, part city, part amusement park, kind of gritty, kind of old school. I just love it!

A perfect evening would be to meet up late afternoon to hang out on the boardwalk for a bit, take a walk on the beach, then head to the minor league baseball stadium to watch The Cyclones play a baseball game. Tickets are super cheap and you can enjoy a hot dog and watch the silly games they play between innings.

Then at 9pm every Friday in summertime there are fireworks! Every Friday! If you’re lucky, you can time it just right to head to the Wonder Wheel (the ferris wheel) and get in one of the swinging cars and be at the top for the fireworks. It’s kind of epic if you can swing it.

Then it’s just bumper cars and Dance Dance Revolution until you’re ready to head home.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As a small business owner and the director of a non profit my father has always been incredibly supportive of my business and my career, offering clear advice in small doses for maximum impact. I saw him build his own business focused on giving corporations doing social good the spotlight and exposing corporations focused on financial gains at the cost of people and the environment. He has been unwavering in his dedication to “the underdog” and his ethos has become an integral part of how I run my business.

As an artist, there have been many who I have admire over time. Steve Powers is the artist who has probably had the biggest impact on me. He incorporate text and humor into art in a way that always makes me happy. And his commitment to public art, particularly in underserved areas, I continue to admire.

Website: dirtybandits.com

Instagram: @dirtybandits

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annica-lydenberg/

Other: youarenotalonemurals.com