By August 2015, Sponge & Digital Design was already making waves in international web design. The agency's main site had collected a series of accolades over several months: on May 24 it was named site of the week on CSSDA, on May 29 it became site of the day on CSS Nectar, on June 13 it received Site of the Day on CSS Winner, on July 20 it was noted on BestCSS, and on August 8 it landed in Site of the Day on Awwwards. For a studio from Odesa, this meant a constant presence before the design community, which sifts through dozens of new sites every day.
The American promotional site was built separately, for users in the US. Its path to a first award proved shorter than that of the agency's main site. A nomination on CSS Winner and a feature on One Page Love came on August 3, and just seven days later the site received its first full-fledged award on BestCSS.
BestCSS, like other platforms in this group, works simply: sites are published in a catalog, and editors daily select the best one and grant it Site of the Day status. A entry appeared on the BestCSS award page that can be quoted verbatim: “Promo site of creative bureau Sponge & Digital Design for US users.” It records not only the fact of the award but also for whom the site was created.
One Page Love, where the site was published a week before the award, specializes in one-page sites. For a promotional site, this format fits naturally: all information about the studio and its projects fits on a single scrolling screen, and the designer solves the task as a whole, from the first screen to the final button.
The American Site's First Award
BestCSS was followed by a nod from CSS Design Awards. On August 14, 2015, the agency's American site received Special Kudos with a score of 7.57. The CSSDA platform rates sites by points, and Special Kudos is awarded on top of the regular score, meaning the work earned additional recognition from the jury.
The chain of awards did not stop there. On October 14, the site was included in a personal selection by AndySowards, curated by the author of the same name. Thus, in two months, a single promotional site went from nomination to features on three different platforms, each with its own audience and its own selection criteria.
The Studio and Its Leadership
The agency's development is driven by founder Bohdan Hnatiuk. In 2014, the executive director of Sponge was Kyrylo Soliar, who discussed the studio's work in an interview with Innabits. At the same time, lead designer Serhii Semernov headed the SPONGE STORE direction, which suggests that by 2015 the agency was working not only on client sites but also on its own projects.
It was this combination—commissioned work and independent experiments—that allowed the studio to step onto the international stage. The American promotional site was one result of that work, and each of its awards was earned in open competitions where the site was judged regardless of who the client was.
In October 2015, attention to the agency's work also grew domestically. On October 22, at the Golden Site awards, the Sponge site took first place in the “Digital Agency Site” category.
1
