From the very beginning, the bureau had its own philosophy. Sponge, a sponge, absorbs knowledge and filters the best specialists, while the compass and square in the logo signify precision and the pursuit of perfection. The name, as the bureau recounted, was invented by Bohdan Hnatiuk's child, and there is nothing loud in this family version, but there is a clear idea: the team must absorb all the best and discard the rest.
The picture is not uniform when it comes to the founding date. On the bureau's own history page, the beginning is given as 2000. Other sources give 2009: AIN.UA in October 2014 wrote that the bureau was founded in 2009 in Odesa, and the Tagline card also indicates 2009 as the year of foundation. The most precise date belongs to the studio itself: in the profile of Sponge D&D on CSS Winner, it says verbatim “Creative bureau Sponge, born November 22, 2009”. It is this date that must be considered the confirmed public date of the bureau's birth.
From Web Studio to Bureau
According to the reference encyclopedia Cyclopedia, in 2003 the studio was called Layner, and in 2007 it was renamed Sponge. At the same time, according to Cyclopedia, the count shifted to 2009. The encyclopedia itself relies here on Hnatiuk's blog, so the history of the renaming should be considered a version, not the only document. However, the description on IGate directly states that the company was founded in November 2009 on the basis of another web studio, meaning the transition from previous work to a new bureau was exactly that, and not from scratch.
In a 2015 interview, the bureau said that Hnatiuk opened the company at the end of 2009. Even then, Sponge positioned itself as a studio working in the international market, with offices in Odesa and New Jersey. CSS Winner lists these two offices as the main ones, and this is the only source where the geography of the offices is stated so specifically.
“Creative bureau Sponge, born November 22, 2009. Main offices in Odessa and New Jersey”
First Awards and Recognition
The bureau's notable appearance on the international scene is linked to 2013. On 5 December 2013, the bureau's work received an Honorable Mention on Awwwards, one of the main platforms for evaluating websites. The Behance profile, where the studio published its work, was created on 23 August 2013, and in early 2014 the bureau was included in Splashnology's “30 Dark Web Designs for Inspiration” selection, where Sponge took 23rd place out of 30. In the same year, 2014, the studio received accolades at Ukrainian Design: the Estetico.me website and the logo for “Pershyi Miskyi”.
Not all competitions went in the bureau's favor. On 30 May 2014, at the 15th KMRF, Sponge submitted seven entries but received no awards. Nevertheless, in October 2014, AIN.UA published the piece “What Dynamic Design Can Do: The Example of Creative Bureau Sponge”, meaning the media already saw the studio as an interesting example for the industry.
Looks.fm and the Season of CSS Awards
In 2015, the bureau was linked to the Looks.fm project. Hnatiuk was one of its creators, while Kyrylo Soliar served as the project's director and product manager. Korrespondent wrote about Looks.fm in February and March 2015, and Soliar later published a column in the Goethe-Institut magazine. For the bureau, this was an important expansion: in addition to websites for clients, the studio now had its own product that was discussed beyond the design community.
In the spring and summer of 2015, the bureau worked on websites that appeared on CSS platforms. A series of Site of the Day (SOTD) marks and similar accolades from 24 May to 14 August appeared on CSSDA, CSS Nectar, CSS Light, CSS Winner, BestCSS, CSSReel and Awwwards, where the mark is dated 8 August. For the American version of the site, there were marks from One Page Love, BestCSS and CSSDA Special Kudos, the latter dated 14 August 2015 with a score of 7.57. Awards such as SOTD mean that the site was recognized as the best of the day on a specific platform, and for the studio this is the main indicator of professional attention.
The bureau's work also appeared in Behance selections. On 30 June 2015, the Madonna project appeared on Behance, and on 21 September Sostav named it among the best projects of the summer in motion design. In 2016, Kyrylo Soliar was listed as executive director of Sponge D&D in IGate selections, and on 4 February 2016 CSS Light recognized the Furgoneta website, on the same day CSS Winner gave SOTD for the same project. On 29 March 2016, Business Logic Group entered Best of Behance.
Rating of Runet and Latest Marks
The bureau established itself in the ratings for a long time. In 2017, the Rating of Runet placed Sponge 4th for creativity among digital agencies, and the company itself that year took 97th place in the Tagline TOP-100 digital production. On 28 September 2017, the result was reprinted by the business blog on Sostav and AllAdvertising. In 2018, the bureau dropped to 10th place in the Rating of Runet but received 51 awards. On 6 September 2018, in a job posting on, the bureau described itself as a studio with “more than 60 awards in two years”.
The last curated Behance mark on the bureau's work is dated 15 June 2018, and in 2019 the Rating of Runet placed Sponge 37th with 51 awards. The CEO line of the rating listed Bohdan Hnatiuk, who by that time had already led for seven years the bureau created on the basis of the former studio.
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