CSS Winner is one of the international web design galleries. Sites here receive scores, and the best are marked with titles of varying rank, from nomination to "star" and "site of the day." The Site of the Day title is awarded to a single project per day, so landing in this category means the work rose above the others selected that day. Carts Guru's score was 7.6, and design was separately given the same mark.
In its description, the gallery summed up the service in a single phrase:
a service for promoting online stores
Carts Guru operates on the SaaS model — software the client uses in a browser by subscription, without installing anything on their own computers. In 2016 the project was at the MVP stage, a minimum viable product: the first version a startup brings to users to test demand and refine its features. For such a product the interface is no secondary detail, because it is through the interface that the client decides whether it is worth paying for.
The startup's identity as a single product
Sponge's work for the French client covered web applications, branding, the interfaces of the service itself, the logo and presentations. The studio built not a separate storefront but everything the user and partner see: from the product's screens to the materials the startup presents to clients and partners. When interface logic, marks and copy combine into a single impression, the service gains a recognizability that is hard to assemble from disparate contractors.
For a young company, such consistency is especially noticeable. The product map, the brand mark and the presentation work together, and a website that looks like an extension of the product lowers the visitor's questions. The international gallery in this case served as outside verification: the jury judged the work worthy of separate attention.
The bureau's awards, before and after
For Sponge, this award became another link in the list of recognized works. The bureau's own website received Site of the Day from CSS Winner on 13 June 2015 with a score of 7.5, and on 8 August of the same year Awwwards, another international website competition, gave it the same title with a score of 7.03. Awwwards posts jury scores and marks the best projects by day, so both achievements belong to the same system of verification.
On 22 October 2015, at the Golden Site awards, the Sponge website took first place in the Digital Agency Website category. In the 2016 Runet Creativity Ranking, the bureau placed 11th. The Runet Ranking evaluates sites and digital companies of the Russian-language internet, and such placements show how the studio's work looks against the market within the country.
The bureau's founder, Bohdan Hnatiuk, attributes such results to constant work on client projects rather than to separate campaigns aimed at competitions. Carts Guru itself became one of the projects where the studio built the product in full: from interfaces to print and presentation materials.
In the same 2016, other works connected with the bureau appeared in the same international galleries. Furgoneta received Site of the Day from CSS Winner on 4 February, and the CSS Nectar gallery recognized the project on 7 February. On 21 February CSS Nectar selected the Kvadrat website, and on 10 July CSS Winner gave the title to the Trendon website. At the Golden Site 2016 awards, the Furgoneta and Trendon projects took first place in their categories.
The next CSS Winner mark for works connected with the studio came on 4 September 2016: the White Tetris project received the Site of the Day title.
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