Ukrainian Design is considered one of the main professional competitions for advertising and design in Ukraine. It is organized by the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition, which brings together agencies and advertisers from across the country. Entries are judged in tiers: the most visible distinction for most participants is called Best of, and above it sits The Very Best Of. For the Odesa studio Sponge Digital & Design, the prize for the language school website was the first in this series.
The client was the Chkalov Foreign Language Courses in Odesa. Their history begins in 1925, and in the submission the studio emphasized that the courses are considered among the oldest in Ukraine. The agency expressed this idea in a single phrase that the competition preserved in its description of the work:
“one of the oldest courses in Ukraine. They take their origin in the distant 1925”
The task was to make the website of an educational institution with a long history look modern while retaining its recognizability. For an educational project this is a delicate balance: the site must inspire trust in those who remember the school and at the same time attract those who have come here for the first time.
In 2013, the same Best of tier in the website category included work by the agency banda, namely the projects Share the love and Ads that make me mad, as well as a project by the studio Webmil called MGK. The company is telling: that year the competition compared websites from various Ukrainian teams in a single category, and a place alongside these works meant that the jury saw a mature solution in Sponge’s project.
The studio in 2013
The award came at a time when the agency was already standing out noticeably on the Ukrainian market. On December 5, 2013, Awwwards, the international web design competition where sites are judged on design, usability and creativity, gave an Honorable Mention to the previous version of Sponge’s website. For the studio this was the second sign that its work interested the professional community beyond Ukraine.
The agency was founded by Bohdan Hnatiuk, and it was his team that shaped the approach to client projects during these years. In 2014, the executive director of Sponge was Kyrylo Solyar, who spoke about the studio’s work in an interview with the portal Innabits. This management structure made it possible to combine the creative side with business negotiations, and for an agency with Ukrainian roots this was important when working with clients who need not only a beautiful website but also a clear result.
The 2013–2016 award series
The language school website opened a series of awards that stretched over four years. In 2013 the agency received one prize, in 2014 two, in 2015 four, and in 2016 one more. Eight awards in total, and among them the highest tier, The Very Best Of, which in 2015 went to the work Madonna.
In 2014 the studio received two Best of distinctions. The website Estetico.me was recognized in the web category, and the logo for “Pershyi Miskyi” in the logo category. That same year Sponge held notable positions in Ukrainian agency rankings, and in the winter season of 2014/2015 the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition placed the agency 21st.
In 2015, four works received awards at once. Besides Madonna, Best of went to the agency’s own website, the logo for the KTK channel and the Geeks Empire TV intro. In the autumn of that same year, at the Golden Site 2015 awards, the Sponge website took first place in the nomination for digital agencies, Estetico was third among educational projects and blogs, and Foundator was second in the financial media category.
The series concluded in 2016. That year the competition gave Best of to the Trendon Online Shop, and this work became the eighth Ukrainian Design award the studio received over four seasons. The first prize for the Odesa language school website in 2013 proved to be the starting point from which this series began.
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