Rating Runeta collects profiles of web studios, agencies and website developers, then ranks them by category and city. Sponge D&D's profile described a company with eleven years of experience, a staff of 41–50 and general director Bohdan Hnatiuk. As of September 2020 the studio stood fourth in Odesa, and that line became the first signal that the bureau had noticeably strengthened its position in the local market.
The city line and how it moved
In the profile the position is set out on its own line, worded as follows:
“4th place in the ranking of website developers in Odesa”
By January 2021 the same entry showed second place in the city. For a studio that by then had been working for more than ten years, this meant growth in local competition, where orders come from companies in Odesa itself and the neighbouring regions. Through the 2010s Odesa remained one of the notable centres of Ukrainian web development, so a rise at city level spoke of steady demand for the bureau's work.
The city position rested on results Sponge had achieved considerably earlier. In Rating Runeta's creativity rating the studio took fourth place in 2017 with 23.32 points, then dropped to tenth in 2018 with 12.25 points. The creativity rating takes account of assessments of the work, so the gap between those two years shows how the flow of the bureau's notable projects changed.
International galleries and local awards
The main external assessments came from international web design galleries. Awwwards selects the best sites and confers its “Site of the Day” award. On 8 August 2015 the studio's own site received that award with a score of 7.03. Sponge's profile on CSS Winner, a platform run on the same jury principle, recorded 21 nominations, 6 stars and 9 “Site of the Day” awards. These figures show that the studio's work regularly came to the attention of the professional community beyond Ukraine.
In October 2015, at the Golden Site 2015 awards, the Sponge site took first place in the “Digital Agency Website” category. That same year the studio received “Best of B-1” at the Ukrainian UD competition, where its own site was recognised. Even earlier, in 2014, the bureau published material about its design, including an interview with Innabits in which executive director Kyrylo Soliar discussed the studio's work.
The people behind the line
Bohdan Hnatiuk founded the studio and was listed as its general director in the rating profile. Around his team a roster took shape that was responsible for design and projects. In 2014 Serhii Semernov was lead designer and director of SPONGE STORE, and later he worked as art director of Sponge D&D. This shifting of roles within the team explains why the studio was able to maintain design quality across different projects.
The work for the Pyvovarov project is one example. On 23 August 2017 the site received “Site of the Day” on CSS Winner with a score of 7.6, and on 25 August it took two awards at once on Awwwards: “Site of the Day” with a score of 7.13 and the Developer Award with a score of 7.17. For the studio this was a telling case of a single piece of work collecting accolades in several international galleries at once.
In January 2021, Sponge D&D's profile on Rating Runeta showed the studio in second place among website developers in Odesa.
1
