Behance is a platform for publishing work by designers, illustrators, and photographers, owned by Adobe. Any author can upload a project, but inclusion in a thematic gallery is decided solely by the platform's curators. The 'User Interface' tag means the work has been selected for a collection of projects where screens, navigation, and information presentation are paramount. For a financial company's website, this is crucial: a visitor to an investment fund must quickly grasp what is being offered and not get lost in numbers and charts.
The project itself was published on Behance on June 14, 2017. It concerns the GR Capital fund website, created in 2017, as well as the logo and corporate identity, which are executed in a single visual system with the website. The client received not just a separate page but a recognizable image of the company that works equally well on the main screen, in presentations, and on paper. Nearly 900 appreciations and about ten thousand views by the time of the curators' selection show that interest in the work persisted for a long time—more than seven months after publication.
A studio that already had awards by 2018
Sponge was founded in 2009. The exact date, November 22, 2009, is cited by CSS Winner, and Bohdan Hnatiuk remains the studio's founder. The bureau began attracting the attention of the professional community long before the GR Capital story. On December 5, 2013, Awwwards awarded the studio's website an Honorable Mention. Awwwards is an international award for websites where the jury evaluates design, usability, and technical implementation. Honorable Mention means inclusion among the recognized works but not a prize-winning place.
In 2014, the studio's works went through several platforms. On February 9, Splashnology included Sponge in its '30 Dark Web Designs for Inspiration' selection, where the studio ranked 23rd out of 30. In May, at the 15th KMRF, the Kyiv International Advertising Festival, the bureau submitted seven entries and received no awards. However, within Ukrainian Design 2014, the Estetico.me website and the logo for 'Pershyi Miskyi' were recognized. At the same time, the studio also showed motion work: the Alien video received a tag in the Motion Graphics category on Behance.
In 2015, the studio's name became known beyond the professional community. Bohdan Hnatiuk was one of the creators of Looks.fm, a service for music compilations, and Serhiy Semerniov also participated in its creation. The product was managed by Kyrylo Soliar, who later became the executive director of Sponge D&D. Korrespondent wrote about Looks.fm in February and March 2015. Work on the service proceeded in parallel with client projects, demonstrating that the bureau also had its own product expertise.
Awards, rankings, and place in the industry
Recognition beyond Behance also grew. On March 29, 2016, Behance recognized work for Business Logic Group, and on September 25, 2017—a few months before the GR Capital recognition—the Helicopter View work appeared. In the Runet ranking for 2017, Sponge took fourth place for creativity among digital agencies. On September 28, this news was reprinted by the business blog on Sostav and AllAdvertising. A year earlier, the studio appeared in IGate selections, and in 2016 it entered the Tagline design studio ranking at 67th place.
The studio's curated series on Behance continued after GR Capital. On June 15, 2018, the platform recognized the OneClickMoney work, and this became the last recognition in the series. In the 2018 Runet ranking, Sponge rose to tenth place and received 51 awards, and in 2019 it took 37th place with the same 51 awards. At that time, Bohdan Hnatiuk was listed as CEO.
In a job posting published on September 6, 2018, on, the studio described itself as:
This formulation was based on the entire set of competitions and recognitions, in which the GR Capital website occupied one of the last places. The job posting became one of the last public traces of the studio for 2018 found in open sources.“more than 60 awards in two years”
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