The Runet Rating runs the website, and one of its sections is devoted to design studios, which are evaluated by creativity. The main indicator here is not revenue or the number of orders, but the studio's results in international website competitions. The more prize places a studio has won and the higher the scores for its works, the higher it climbs in the list.
In the row for Sponge D&D in the 2018 and 2019 rankings stands the number 51. The rating calculates prize places in creativity competitions according to its own methodology, so the figure 51 does not coincide with the bureau's own count of awards and does not add up with it. These are two different accounting systems, and they must not be mixed.
Which competitions stand behind the numbers
Most of Sponge D&D's awards come from English-language website competitions that operate on the "site of the day" scheme. Awwwards recognizes sites in the categories Site of the Day, Honorable Mention and Nominee, and also gives separate awards to developers. CSS Winner confers the titles Site of the Day, Star and Nominee. CSS Design Awards issues, among others, Website of the Day and Special Kudos. The other platforms work on the same logic: BestCSS and CSS Nectar select sites of the day, CSS Light marks the best sites in its categories, and CSSReel grants its own wins.
Domestic awards complete the picture. Ukrainian Design gives prizes in the Best of categories, and the studio received them both for its own site and for client work. "Zolotoy Sayt" (Golden Site) is a Russian award for the best websites, presented since 2015. In 2015 the studio's own site took first place in the nomination "Digital Agency Website", and in 2016 two golds went to client work: the Furgoneta and Trendon websites.
Year by year
The studio's path to its current numbers looks fairly even, although the peaks were uneven. In 2015 the studio's own site went through a whole series of competitions in succession. It received Website of the Day from CSS Design Awards on 24 May, then became Site of the Day on CSS Nectar on 29 May and Favorite of the Day on CSS Light on 3 June. On 13 June CSS Winner conferred Site of the Day on it, on 20 July BestCSS marked it, on 27 July the site became a CSSReel winner, and on 8 August Awwwards awarded it Site of the Day with a score of 7.03.
Client work proceeded in parallel during those years. In 2016 the companies Furgoneta and Trendon received awards from Awwwards and CSS Winner, and the Defence Group site was marked by several platforms at once. In 2017, for the Pivovarov project, the site received Site of the Day on CSS Winner on 23 August with a score of 7.6, Special Kudos from CSS Design Awards the next day, and simultaneously Site of the Day and Developer Award on Awwwards on 25 August. At the same time the Style Whisperer site received Honorable Mention from Awwwards and Star from CSS Winner.
In the creativity ranking itself the dynamics are as follows: in 2016 the studio took 11th place, in 2017 it rose to 4th with a result of 23.32, in 2018 it dropped to 10th with a result of 12.25, and in 2019 it ended up in 37th place with a result of 4.59. A fall of 27 positions in a year looks sharp, but the figure 51 in the row remained unchanged, as can be seen from both rankings.
People and bureau
Bohdan Hnatiuk founded the bureau and in the Runet Rating profile for 2019–2021 is listed as its general director. Kyrylo Soliar, executive director of Sponge, spoke about the bureau's work in an interview with Innabits in 2014. Serhii Semernov, who started as a lead designer, according to DOU for 2018 worked as art director of Sponge D&D.
The studio's work in competitions relied on teamwork between designers and developers. Awwwards and CSS Winner awards are given to specific projects, while the developer award at Awwwards separately marks those who built the site. Therefore behind one row in the ranking stand dozens of projects for various clients and several generations of employees.
The last major event in the same line was "Zolotoy Sayt 2016": the Furgoneta and Trendon works took first places in their nominations, and the studio itself entered the developers ranking, where it scored 10 points and took a place in the range from 13th to 18th.
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