Sampriya Bhandare’s almst studio bridges the gap between ideas and their full realization, crafting brands with strategic and visual depth. From its humble beginnings in 2021 to a thriving creative hub, the studio has reshaped branding by blending global thinking with cultural context, creating experiences that resonate deeply with audiences.
When an upcoming brand takes their idea to a studio, most design briefs are bound to come almost finished. The founder has the name, a hunch about the packaging, a deck that communicates their vision... but it often falls short of just one thing or the other.
This little gap is what gave Sampriya Bhandare’s almst studio its name.
You've seen her work everywhere, from Samantha Ruth Prabhu's Mile Collective and campaigns for Ranbir Kapoor's Arks to Tira Beauty and Fix My Curls. Chances are, you know some of these brands because Sampriya and her team knew exactly how to reach you with their branding. You've seen it in the posts that make you stop and like the carousel midst doomscrolling. If, while shopping from a new brand, you thought to yourself that the website was slick or the packaging was neat, the meticulous design of the boutique was at play. "Good design," says Bhandare, "should feel almost invisible. You don’t necessarily notice it, but you notice how much better the experience feels."
Yet, for a brand that has achieved so much in such a short time, almst was founded out of her bedroom as recently as 2021. In fact, it only opened its first physical studio last year.
The studio, named almst 401, is located in Ballard Estate, and its look traces back to her time at the Meatpacking district in New York. “I spent a lot of time around Meatpacking, partly because of all the creative studios and co-working spaces there. I’d walk into a seminar or a studio, and I loved how open and industrial everything felt,” she recalls. The feel of the district stayed back in her mind, ready to be recreated the day she could turn almst into its own physical space.
Now, a year and a half after finally having her own space, designer and entrepreneur sat down with Esquire India for a quick chat on what makes a brand last, how Instagram turned packaging into part of the product, and why craft might be the next luxury.
almst studio has had a spectacular run since its inception. Tell me about the journey so far, and how have you and the studio has evolved along the way?
I think almst started in the gap between an idea and its fullest realisation.
Most of the industry is built around scalability, more clients, more output, frameworks that fit all. We chose to be a studio: intentional, thought first and intuitive. Over time, we’ve slowly carved out our niche and built a space where we can create with purpose every day.
That way of working has allowed us to build long term relationships with founders, watching homegrown brands go from being bootstrapped to raising capital and scaling. Seeing our work at a corner store or pop up on someone else’s moodboard is a feeling that never gets old. Those are the moments that make me feel like we’re slowly doing our bit in shaping how this landscape evolves. At the same time, working with larger, established companies has taught us how to bring a fresh perspective into worlds that already have scale and structure.
Somewhere between the two, we’ve developed a strong understanding of the Indian landscape, how to take global thinking, give it cultural context, and build brands that stay with you.
I think that’s what almst has evolved into: we’re not just reshaping the visual perspective of brands, but building brands with bones, a strong strategic and visual foundation that gives them somewhere to go.
Four and a half years in, the studio has grown from our bedrooms into a physical space, a multidisciplinary team and a growing global network. But we’re still working in that same gap, between the idea and everything it can become.
What part of your personality shows up most in almst's projects?
A lot of what ends up in my work starts long before I know it’s going to become work.
As a boutique studio, I’m closely involved in every project we take on. I’m constantly observing, and I have a somewhat photographic memory and, thankfully, enough iCloud storage to support it. When I travel, I collect interesting tickets and cocktail menus, notice how spaces are designed, remember interactions, and seek out experiences with strangers. I hold on to these things, even when I don’t know what they’re for yet.
Research and frameworks are important, but a lot of our thinking comes from what sits beyond the data. The things that make you feel something, the small details that give a brand personality and make the work feel human. I think that’s where curiosity and intuition come in, and they naturally find their way into everything we do.
How do you decide which projects are worth pursuing?
It’s usually the people. Founders make the brand long before the brand even exists, and I think you can feel that conviction in the work. We look for people with a strong point of view, a clear sense of why they’re building something and the ambition to take it somewhere.
For us, it’s as much about believing in the person behind the brand as it is about the brief itself. If we believe in the founder, the idea and where they want to take it, that’s usually where we want to be.
Who or what has influenced the way you think about design the most?
My father, Raj Bhandare. He’s an architect, an artist and a man with many interests, so growing up, there was always something to look at, question or talk about.
I grew up in Goa in the early 2000s, in the middle of a really vibrant cultural scene. Through him, art, galleries, music and architecture were simply part of everyday life. He taught me to look beyond what’s in front of me, to ask where things come from, what influences them and why they matter. We still talk about the history and culture behind things we might otherwise take for granted. To be fair, not much has changed.
I think that’s shaped my taste and the way I approach art and design more than anything else.
Coming to 401, what was the idea behind choosing the name, and what is your vision with this community?
401 is quite literally the address of our studio, but I liked the simplicity of giving the space a name that felt open ended. It isn’t meant to be just an almst workspace. The idea was always for it to become a place where people from different creative worlds could come together, exchange ideas, work, host things and hopefully leave having discovered something new.
That’s really what I want the community around 401 to be about. It’s less about creating a formal community and more about creating a space where interesting people naturally cross paths.
Our partnership with Kyoorius has helped bring that to life. They’ve brought their own network and perspective into the space, allowing 401 to become more connected to the wider creative industry. Through talks, conversations and gatherings, we’re creating a space for dialogue and exchange.
I think that’s the most exciting part of 401. It’s still evolving, and I’d rather let the community shape what it becomes than define it too tightly from the start.
There was a time when marketing a product was largely about its USP. Today, a brand’s aesthetics, identity and packaging can be almost as important as the product itself. How did we get here, and what has driven this shift?
The internet, and especially Instagram, has completely changed how we experience brands.
We’re no longer just seeing a product on a shelf or at a store. We’re seeing how it’s packaged, how it’s unboxed, how a space looks, how someone experiences it, and how all of that translates visually online. That has made us much more aware of the world beyond product functionality.
Your competition today isn’t necessarily the brand sitting next to you on a shelf. It’s the brands someone is seeing from across the world on their phone. So naturally, expectations have changed. People are looking for an experience, not just a product, and the internet has made that experience part of the product itself.
What are some changes in this space that really excite you?
Honestly, all of it. I think that’s partly why I do what I do. I love working across different mediums and seeing how things translate across platforms.
I’m excited by interactive websites, new materials and packaging experiences, and collaborating with really interesting photographers and art directors on campaigns. I think there are so many more possibilities now, and that’s what makes the space exciting to me.
Speaking of change, there is a growing fear that creative work could eventually be replaced by artificial intelligence. How do you see AI changing the creative industry?
I think there are multiple schools of thought around this, but personally, I see AI changing the value of creative work rather than simply replacing it.
When something can be done faster, cheaper and at scale, it becomes a commodity. And when execution becomes more accessible, the value shifts towards things that are harder to replicate: taste, authorship, craft, perspective and original thought.
That’s particularly interesting to me because we work with a lot of luxury and elevated brands. We’re already seeing a renewed appreciation for artists, illustrators, painters, film photographers, clay artists and makers with a very distinct way of creating. Look at brands like Loewe, Hermès or Rimowa collaborating with artists across different mediums. The fact that something has been thoughtfully made by someone, rather than simply generated, becomes part of the value. Craft itself starts to feel like a luxury.
I think the use of AI is inevitable, and I’m open to it as a tool. If it can help with repetitive or operational tasks, it frees us up to spend more time on the things that matter. But I don’t think the answer is to use AI to replace the thinking itself. If AI makes creation more accessible, I think the value of craft only becomes greater.
Finally, what next for almst studio?
I think what’s next for almst is about going deeper into what we’ve already built. We’re working with some exciting homegrown brands, exploring the cultural side of the studio, and thinking about how we can make work that lives beyond the brief.
There’s a lot in the pipeline. For now, we’re focused on making sharper work, pushing our thinking further and seeing where it takes us.