Sandberg was born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands in 1897 and studied art in Amsterdam. He became a follower of the Mazdaznan movement. As a young man he traveled, serving as an apprentice to a printer in Herrliberg, Switzerland. In 1927, he visited Vienna, where he studied Otto Neurath's Isotype system at the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien. At this time, he also visited the Dessau Bauhaus and met Naum Gabo, a pioneer of kinetic art.
