On Tuesday, January 17, 2017, BizzGrid was named Site of the Day at CSS Winner. It is one of the web design galleries where sites are scored on a scale and selected on a daily basis. The project's score was 7.6. That mark earned the site a prominent place among the day's best work and gave the Sponge studio one of its first big results of the new year.
A day earlier, on January 16, the same site received an Honorable Mention at Awwwards. Awwwards is regarded as one of the leading international showcases of web design, featuring work that has passed expert review. An honorable mention in that system ranks below Site of the Day, but making the list at all means the project stood out from a large field of entries. Two honors from different galleries within twenty-four hours were rare at the time for both student and commercial projects, so the professional community took quick notice.
How the studio stood by 2017
Sponge was founded by Bohdan Hnatiuk, and by the start of 2017 the studio already had a long awards history. The run of recognition began well before BizzGrid. In May 2015 the studio's own site received a CSSDA mark on May 24 with a score of 7.80, followed by CSS Nectar on May 29, CSS Light on June 3, and CSS Winner Site of the Day on June 13 with a score of 7.5. Then came BestCSS on July 20, CSSReel on July 27, and Awwwards Site of the Day on August 8 with a score of 7.03.
The studio also competed at home that year. At the Golden Site competition in October 2015, the Sponge site took first place in the Digital Agency Website category. Foundator's work placed second in the financial media category, and the Estetico site placed third in the educational projects and blogs category. The developer ranking based on that competition put the studio in 17th–19th place with 9 points.
2016: Client projects in global galleries
In 2016 the main flow of awards came from client projects. The Furgoneta site received an Honorable Mention at Awwwards on January 30, then Site of the Day at CSS Winner on February 4 and a CSS Nectar mark on February 7. Trendon received an Honorable Mention at Awwwards on June 13 and Site of the Day at CSS Winner on July 10. The Defence Group project received a Star at CSS Winner on August 11, and White Tetris received Site of the Day at CSS Winner on September 4. Simbrella earned an Honorable Mention at Awwwards on November 30.
At Golden Site 2016, Furgoneta and Trendon took first places in their categories. The studio scored 10 points in the developer ranking and landed in the 13–18 range. Those results set the benchmark the team worked from in 2017.
2017: A run of recognition
In early 2017, BizzGrid was followed by other results. On February 4 the M1 Club Hotel site received Site of the Day at both CSS Winner and BestCSS at once. On May 1 the Arbeko project received a Star at CSS Winner. In the summer the studio achieved its most notable result of the year: on August 23 the Pyvovarov site received Site of the Day at CSS Winner with a score of 7.6 — the same mark as BizzGrid. The next day the project received Special Kudos at CSSDA with a score of 7.63, and on August 25 it landed Site of the Day at Awwwards and received the Developer Award.
The run continued into the fall. Style Whisperer received an Honorable Mention at Awwwards on September 13 and a Star at CSS Winner on September 16. On September 28 the Helicopter View project also received a Star at CSS Winner. In the end, in the 2017 Runet creativity ranking, Sponge took fourth place with 23.32 points.
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