Ukrainian Design is a Ukrainian design competition that judges websites and graphic work. In 2016, Trendon became one of the bureau's works honored there with a Best of award. For a studio that in previous years had won in this competition mainly for websites and logos, this was a notable confirmation: the online store was judged by the same criteria as corporate projects.
Awwwards is an international platform that selects the best websites by design, layout, and development. Getting into its feed is no easy feat, and the honorable mention that Trendon received on 13 June 2016 means the work was among those recognized but did not take a prize. For a clothing and accessories store, such an assessment matters all the more because international juries look at a website as a product, not as a shop window.
Golden Site and the dispute over ranking
Golden Site is a Russian award that recognizes websites by category. Trendon was the first among online stores, and in the developers' ranking the studio scored 10 points and took a place in the 13th to 18th range. That same year Furgoneta also won in its category, so the bureau received two golds at a single ceremony.
This is precisely where the line runs between what is confirmed and what is claimed. The Runet Rating evaluates digital agencies and studios across several areas, and in 2016 the studio landed in its creativity category, taking 11th place. The claim of a top-five spot in the online-store category is not supported by the available rating materials, so in this text it is cited only as the bureau's position.
Its place in the industry ranking of the ARK (Association of Russian Communications Agencies) rose faster. In the 2014/2015 season the studio took 21st place with 4 points, and in the 2015/2016 season it became 8th among digital agencies, scoring 29 points. This gap shows that growth was systemic rather than driven by a single project.
Its own website and the path of 2015
The bureau's works on international platforms began before Trendon. In 2015, Sponge's own website received a series of awards: Site of the Day at CSS Winner on 13 June, and then Site of the Day at Awwwards on 8 August. CSS Winner is an aggregator site that daily selects the best works and evaluates them by several criteria, and Site of the Day means winning the daily selection.
In the autumn of that same year the bureau received another notable distinction. At Golden Site 2015, Sponge's website took first place in the Digital Agency Website category, and this shaped how the studio came to be perceived in the Russian professional community. The bureau's founder, Bohdan Hnatiuk, spent these years developing projects and the team, and was later listed as director in the studio's profile on.
What came next
On 10 July 2016, Trendon received Site of the Day at CSS Winner—the very award that in the application's final list stands alongside the Best of and Awwwards. A year later, in 2017, the studio rose to 4th place in the Runet Rating's creativity ranking, scoring 23.32 points.
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