Feeliny was created by Sponge for a client of the same name in 2015. According to the project description, it comprises more than fifty screens, dozens of icons and illustrations. The studio also developed the brand identity, so the work combined the store's interface and the brand's visual language. On the agency's website, the case is listed under the English title "An E-commerce That Withstood Everything."
Behance is owned by Adobe and serves as a portfolio platform: designers upload projects, and curators select the best ones for thematic galleries. The project appeared on the platform on October 28, 2015, and the feature in the Web Design category came in the new year. For curators, such a feature means the work has been included in a selection of the best in its category, and for the studio it is a free showcase before an audience that is looking for contractors.
The Studio's Path to Feeliny
External sources date Sponge's history back to 2009. According to CSS Winner, the exact date is November 22, 2009. The studio was founded by Bogdan Gnatyuk, who also had a hand in launching the Looks.fm service, which Korrespondent wrote about in early 2015. Looks.fm became one of the notable Ukrainian projects of that time, and by then the studio had already accumulated several accolades.
The agency's Behance profile appeared on August 23, 2013. In December of the same year, the studio's website received an Honorable Mention on Awwwards, one of the main platforms for evaluating web design. On February 9, 2014, Splashnology included Sponge in its selection "30 Dark Web Designs for Inspiration," where the studio ranked 23rd out of thirty. In 2014, the Ukrainian Design competition recognized the Estetico.me website and the logo for "Pervy Gorodskoy." On October 17, 2014, AIN.UA published the piece "What Dynamic Design Can Do: The Example of Creative Agency Sponge."
Peak Recognition in 2015
In 2015, awards and mentions increased noticeably. From May 24 to August 14, a series of Site of the Day and similar accolades appeared on CSSDA, CSS Nectar, CSS Light, CSS Winner, BestCSS, CSSReel, and Awwwards, and for the American version of the studio's website, One Page Love, BestCSS, and CSSDA Special Kudos were added. Separately, on Behance in June 2015, a work for Madonna was published, which in September the magazine Sostav included in its selection "Best Summer Projects from Behance" in the motion design section.
In July 2015, the agency gave an interview to Dark Site of Marketing, and later, in an interview, Kirill Solyar, head of Looks.fm and a columnist for the Goethe-Institut magazine, presented Sponge in IGate selections as executive director of Sponge D&D. The studio worked simultaneously on product projects and client websites, and Feeliny was one such commission where the design had to be brought to the level of an integrated system: from store screens to icons and illustrations.
What Came Next
The Behance curators' feature was not the last recognition for the studio. On March 29, 2016, another work, for Business Logic Group, was featured on Behance, and on CSS Winner in 2016, Site of the Day awards appeared for Carts Guru and Trendon store. The studio's CSS Winner profile continued to grow, and on February 14, 2017, the work Hijina received a Nominee nomination there, a new entry in the list of the agency's recognized projects.
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