The Runet Rating evaluates studios and agencies working in the Russian internet and singles out separate categories, among them creativity. It was in this category that Sponge D&D secured 11th place in 2016. The path to that result began long before the Russian rating and was tied to the Ukrainian scene, where the studio was already active in 2014.
In autumn 2014 the studio entered Creativity Ukraine and on 17 October found itself 12th in the interim rating with four points. The 2014/2015 season ended with 21st place and the same four points. For a young bureau these were not loud numbers, but they set a direction: the studio taught clients and juries to look at design dynamics, as the Innabits website wrote in August 2014 in an interview with executive director Kyrylo Solyar, and in October of that year AIN.UA reported on the bureau's dynamic design.
The site as the main argument
2015 was the turning point, and the studio's main argument became its own website. In spring and summer it went through all the major international platforms devoted to web design. It began with CSSDA, where on 24 May the site received Website of the Day status with a score of 7.80. Five days later, on 29 May, CSS Nectar noted it; on 3 June the site became Find of the Day on CSS Light, and on 13 June CSS Winner chose it as Site of the Day with a score of 7.5.
The awards continued through the summer: on 20 July the site made BestCSS's Site of the Day, on 27 July it won CSSReel, and the series concluded on 8 August with Site of the Day on Awwwards with a score of 7.03. Awwwards, one of the most famous catalogues of authored web design, recognises one site per day, so inclusion in such a selection usually means the professional jury considered the work outstanding. For the Russian and Ukrainian market, where studios more often work for local clients, such a set of platforms was a rarity.
The year's result was Gold at the Golden Site 2015 award, presented in Moscow on 22 October. The Sponge site was first in the Digital Agency Website category. The studio was also recognised as a developer, not only as a designer: in the developers' rating it took a place in the 17–19 group with nine points.
Clients and the first months of 2016
Its own site became a shop window for clients. In 2016 the studio produced corporate sites for clients including Simbrella and Defence Group. The first months of 2016 showed that the success of 2015 was not a one-off: the Furgoneta site received an Awwwards mention on 30 January, became CSS Winner's Site of the Day on 4 February, and was noted by CSS Nectar on 7 February. Another project, Kvadrat, received CSS Nectar's Site of the Day on 21 February, and the Carts Guru site became CSS Winner's Site of the Day on 6 March.
Against this backdrop the rating result took shape. The public version of the 2016 Runet Rating places the studio 11th in creativity. This is a top-ten position in one category, and it is consistent with the fact that the studio's work in the first half of the year regularly appeared in international selections rather than in a single seasonal burst. The top five among corporate sites that the bureau spoke of is not reflected in the rating's public data, so in this text it can be mentioned only as the studio's own version.
An award for the Murka project was also a notable event of the spring: on 11 May it received a Star at CSS Winner. This was one of the studio's last major results before the rating's publication, and it confirmed that the bureau's sites continued to make the lists of the best even after its own work came out in 2015. Bureau founder Bohdan Hnatiuk in those years led the studio from Ukrainian ratings to international catalogues, and the notable works of the first year became the foundation for new orders for Sponge.
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