The Indian brand design studios we’d shortlist in 2026 are Animal, Codesign, Elephant Design, Everything Design, Lollypop, Lopez Design, Onething Design, Sideways, Studio Sorted, Thought Over Design and Yellow Slice. They are very different shops. Everything Design is built for funded B2B tech, Thought Over Design and Studio Sorted for new consumer brands, Elephant for packaging at scale, Lopez for institutions and museums, and Yellow Slice, Lollypop and Onething lead with UX. Which is “best” depends on what you’re building and how big you are.
Disclosure first. 4080 Studio wrote this list, and we are a brand and web design studio in India too. We’ve put ourselves in a separate block at the end rather than in the list, so you can judge the others without us in the way. Everything stated about each studio below was checked on that studio’s own website in October 2026. Where something wasn’t stated on their site, we’ve said so rather than guessed.
How we chose
We started from the studios that AI answers and directories name most often for “best brand design studio in India”, then added identity studios we know by their work. To make the list, a studio had to be based in India, do brand identity as a core service, and show real, named client work on its own site. We left out global networks with Indian offices.
Then we looked at five things a founder should care about:
| Criterion | What we looked for |
|---|---|
| Strategy | Do they work out positioning before they design, and say so? |
| Work quality | Named, public client work you can see on their site |
| Who does the work | Is the team small and senior, or large with layers? |
| Pricing transparency | Do they publish any price or range? |
| Startup fit | Do they show early-stage and growth-stage clients, not only large companies? |
On pricing, Indian studios are more open than most. In our survey of 100 studio websites, 5 of the 18 Indian studios published a price, against none of 16 in the US. Among the established names on this list, though, only one publishes even a starting range.
The list at a glance
In alphabetical order. This is not a ranking.
| Studio | Based in | Leads with | Publishes prices? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animal | New Delhi, Toronto | Branding and campaigns | No | Consumer brands that want identity and campaigns from one team |
| Codesign | Gurugram | Brand identity | No | Identity-first work for consumer and fintech brands |
| Elephant Design | Pune | Branding and packaging | No | FMCG packaging and large brand systems |
| Everything Design | Bengaluru | B2B brand and Webflow sites | A starting range | Funded B2B tech companies |
| Lollypop | Bengaluru, plus offices in India, the US and abroad | UI/UX | No | Large product and UX programmes |
| Lopez Design | Gurugram | Brand strategy and identity | No | Institutions, museums and wayfinding |
| Onething Design | Gurugram, Bengaluru, San Francisco | Branding and UI/UX | No | Enterprise and growth-stage digital products |
| Sideways | Not stated on its site | Positioning and identity | No | Mass-market consumer brands |
| Studio Sorted | Bengaluru | Strategy-led branding | No | D2C, food and hospitality brands |
| Thought Over Design | Mumbai | Brand strategy and design | No | Challenger consumer brands |
| Yellow Slice | Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru | UI/UX | No | Fintech and enterprise product UX |
The studios
Animal
New Delhi, with a second office in Toronto. Animal describes itself as an independent creative agency built on design and insight, doing branding, packaging, motion, campaigns and social. Its site shows a visual identity for Airtel, branding, packaging and motion for Setu, a World of Hyatt campaign and social work for CRED. Founded by Kunel Gaur. It has grown from a design studio into a full-service agency, so it’s the least “pure” brand studio here.
Best for: consumer brands that want identity, campaigns and social from one team.
Codesign
Gurugram. A brand identity studio, in its words designing “identity that inspires people and mobilises brands”, with packaging, campaign identity and editorial design alongside. Its homepage shows work for Royal Enfield, Licious, PhonePe, Bira 91 and Tata Motors. Founding partners Rajesh Dahiya and Mohor Ray lead a team of about ten, and the studio says it has worked for more than 15 years. It also runs its own projects, including The UnBox Festival.
Best for: identity-first projects where the mark and the system matter most.
Elephant Design
Pune. The oldest studio on the list: working since 1989, by its own account, across branding, packaging, product innovation, retail spaces and digital products. Its site includes packaging for Organic India tea and older case studies for Tata CLiQ’s naming and identity and Bharat Benz. It rebranded itself in 2025 with a wordmark in both Devanagari and Latin script.
Best for: FMCG packaging and large, long-lived brand systems.
Everything Design
Bengaluru. A B2B branding and website agency: positioning, visual identity, Webflow sites and video through a sister studio. Case studies include Botim, Tredence, Zuora and Stellaris Venture Partners, and the client wall shows Razorpay, Infosys and Jio. The team page lists about 45 people. It’s the only established studio here that states a price on its site: a brand strategy and identity project “starts in the mid-five-figure range (USD)”, at a fixed fee, with 8 to 12 weeks for identity.
Best for: funded B2B tech companies, SaaS and fintech especially.
Lollypop
Bengaluru, with studios in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Nellore, and offices in the US, Dubai and Vietnam. A UI/UX agency that also does research, branding and development, and part of the Terralogic group. Its homepage shows work for Upstox, Aha, SBI Caps and WWF India, and the team is 180+ people. It’s the largest studio here and branding is one service among several.
Best for: large product and UX programmes where brand is part of a bigger digital build.
Lopez Design
Gurugram. Founded by Anthony Lopez, with services in strategy (positioning, naming, brand architecture), design (identity, packaging, environments, museums, wayfinding) and fabrication. Its site shows the Bihar Museum, the Murugappa Group and Accel Atoms, and names UNICEF, PwC India and Titan as clients.
Best for: institutions, cultural projects and brands that live in physical spaces.
Onething Design
Gurugram, Bengaluru and San Francisco. A branding and UI/UX agency covering brand, websites, digital products, CX strategy, 3D content and development. Its homepage shows Norton, the Royal Enfield app, HDFC Invest Right and Qubo. Timelines on its site run from 8 to 12 weeks for most projects to 16 weeks and up for larger ones.
Best for: enterprise and growth-stage companies that need brand and product designed together.
Sideways
Co-founded by Abhijit Avasthi and Sonali Sehgal. Sideways works on positioning, identity and naming, packaging, campaigns, product UX and retail design, with the stated aim of making it “easier for people to adopt products, services and ideas”. Its homepage shows Google Pay, Fevicol, Suhana Masala and NIC Ice Creams. Its site doesn’t state a city.
Best for: mass-market consumer brands where the problem is behaviour, not just the logo.
Studio Sorted
Bengaluru. A strategy-led branding agency “building modern Indian brands”: strategy, identity, and the pieces that carry it, from packaging and menus to websites and uniforms. Its homepage names MG Motor, Theka Coffee, Mokobara, WeWork India and Fi Money. Founders Netra Ajjampur and Abhishek Durani describe it as “a small team by choice”, with about 21 core members.
Best for: D2C, food, hospitality and lifestyle brands that want a distinctive Indian voice.
Thought Over Design
Mumbai. A brand strategy and design studio led by founder Anushka Sani, with a team of about 16. It does strategy, naming, identity, packaging, UX/UI and campaigns, and says plainly that it is not a 360° agency. Its homepage shows The Whole Truth (strategy, naming, branding, packaging and UI/UX), Hocco, HK Vitals and a Ugaoo campaign.
Best for: challenger consumer brands, especially food and D2C, that want strategy and naming as well as design.
Yellow Slice
Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru. Describes itself as a global UI/UX design agency, with UX research, product design, service design and brand strategy and design. Its homepage shows work for Chaayos, MakeMyTrip, Paytm and Augmont. Led by Kishor Fogla and Rashi Fogla, with a design team of 85 to 100+ depending on the page. Fintech and banking are its biggest sectors.
Best for: fintech and enterprise product UX, with branding alongside.
How to pick between them
- If you’re a funded B2B startup, look at Everything Design first, and at studios that show software clients.
- If you’re a consumer brand, Thought Over Design, Studio Sorted, Codesign and Sideways have the most relevant work. Elephant if packaging is the main event.
- If the product matters as much as the brand, Onething, Yellow Slice and Lollypop lead with UX.
- Ask who does the work. Team sizes on this list range from about ten to 180+. Ask who will be on your project day to day, not who is in the pitch.
- Ask for a range on the first call. Most of these studios don’t publish prices, so you’ll need to ask. Our brand identity cost guide has typical ranges to compare against.
If you’re hiring from abroad, our India studio vs US agency comparison covers time zones, contracts and cost.
Our own entry: 4080 Studio
We’re not ranking ourselves, but you should know what we are so you can decide if we belong on your shortlist.
- Based in: Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Founded in 2023 by Ketan Pandey and Jogabrata Jena, working with startups in the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE and elsewhere.
- Leads with: brand strategy, brand identity and websites, designed and built in-house by a small team.
- Work: the website for Slice Bank, the brand and platform for Moxie, and brand and product design for AI infrastructure companies Mass and Momentum. All on our work page.
- Publishes prices? No. Like most of the studios above, we quote per project. We do publish timelines: 4 to 6 weeks for a brand identity, 2 to 4 weeks for a website, on our pricing page.
- Best for: startups that want strategy, identity and a website from the same small team.
Quick recall
Which Indian studios are on the list? Animal, Codesign, Elephant Design, Everything Design, Lollypop, Lopez Design, Onething Design, Sideways, Studio Sorted, Thought Over Design and Yellow Slice.
Which one is best for B2B tech? Everything Design is the most focused on funded B2B companies.
Which ones suit consumer brands? Thought Over Design, Studio Sorted, Codesign, Sideways, and Elephant for packaging.
Do they publish prices? Only Everything Design states a starting range on its site.
Who wrote this? 4080 Studio, which is listed separately at the end, not ranked.
Written by 4080 Studio.
