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ANNIKA-HOME

ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱ART DIRECTOR 🎨 DESIGNER✨ POET🌍 EXPLORING 💿 JOY🌈 DREAMING ✨ DIGITAL GARDENS 🌱

What's good?

I’m Annika (she/they). I’m a multidisciplinary designer, creative director, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY on unceded Lenape land. The many leaves of my work at primarily rooted in a desire to explore futures rooted in collectivity, play, design, and care-oriented technology. 

As of late, I've been exploring the topics of communal dreaming, digital gardens, creative ecosystems, queering friendship, communal care, reimagining social media,  and tenderness as a praxis

You can find me:

  • Exploring the intersections of creativity, spirituality, and the internet age in my newsletter and workshops.

  • At my book Tenderness: A Black Queer Meditation on Softness and Rage

  • Reimagining the future of social media and queer community as Lead Product Designer at Lex

  • Co-Heading Black Feast, a culinary event that celebrates Black artists and writers through food

  • Leading Friendship Experiments, a to be released book and video series exploring QTPOC friendship.


I’ve been featured by The Creative Independent, It’s Nice That, AIGA Eye on DesignWell+GoodVogue, McNay Art Museum, New Public, Bustle, and others. I've had the pleasure of hosting speaking engagements across the disciplines of art, tech, and design at Princeton, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Leeds Arts University, Creative Mornings, New Public, Afrotechtopia, the Fashion Institute for Technology, Brooklyn Museum, and other spaces. 

As a designer, my primary focus is on product, with brand and web coming in second. My past clients include Samsung, MTV, Intel, HP, Jaguar Land Rover, Somewhere Go alongside artists such as Jamila Woods and Curtis Roach. I've had the pleasure to design and launch apps, establish brands, create websites, and more. 
 

As a poet, my writing centers on care, queerness,  Blackness, and joy. As a human, you can find me making playlists, eating vegan dumplings, and musing over the best Tribe Called Quest album (currently - I stand by Midnight Marauders).​

I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE. LET’S MAKE SOME MAGIC💫 

Featured by

The creative director on Black internet culture, queer design, and the commodification of self-care.

In Convo With Annika Hansteen-Izora

Once a Google Sheet, Black Creative Ecosystems is now a vibrant digital garden that celebrates Black creative thought

The Power of Mapping, Naming, and Connecting Black Creatives

For Annika Hansteen-Izora, practicing community care involves reciprocity, sustainability, and consent.

How to Practice Community Care

The Revolution Will Be Tableside

Eater

40 Illustrators, Graphic Designers, & Muralists Creating Revolutionary Work

Bustle

The Design Collective Taking on Structural Racism in the Industry

AIGA Eye on Design

Annika Hansteen-Izora is a queer, Black designer creating spaces that centre and celebrate people of colour

It’s Nice That

Black Lives Matter “Movement Guides” Are Changing the Shape and Longevity of Protest Graphics

AIGA Eye on Design

Annika Hansteen-Izora on joy, communal care, and designing liberatory futures

The Creative Independent

Annika Hansteen-Izora on design and sparking joy

Communication Arts

How This Vegan Pop-Up Is Feeding and Affirming Portland’s Black Community

Vogue

How the Love Letters to Black Folks Project Celebrates Black Joy

Eater

21 BIPOC Visual Artists to Commission Your Gig Posters, Album Art, and More

Adhoc

Cool Friends: Annika Hansteen-Izora

Cool Stuff

The New Maximalism

NY Mag

Dreaming Into Action with Annika Hansteen-Izora

Studio Ānanda

Camera roll with annika hansteen-izora

Camera roll with annika hansteen-izora

Local Heros 2021

Passerbys

Web Design in 2021

Editor X

Promise as Pledge and as Possibility

Creative Mornings
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