By the time of the update, the studio was already visible in the professional community. Bohdan Hnatiuk, the founder of the bureau, took part in creating Looks.fm, a service that the Korrespondent blog wrote about in February and March 2015. The project's director and product manager was Kyrylo Soliar, who later wrote a column for the Goethe-Institut magazine and was listed as executive director of Sponge D&D in IGate roundups.
Recognition in world design came gradually. In December 2013 the bureau's work received an Honorable Mention on Awwwards, an international platform that highlights the best sites every day. In February 2014 the Splashnology blog included the studio in its roundup "30 Dark Web Designs for Inspiration," where the Sponge site placed 23rd out of 30. In May 2014 the bureau took part in the 15th Kyiv International Advertising Festival, submitting seven entries. The studio won no awards at that festival, but the very fact of participating showed that its work was reaching beyond the Ukrainian market.
A new site and the first wave of selections
In the autumn of 2014 AIN.UA published a piece under the headline:
"What Dynamic Design Can Do: The Example of the Creative Bureau Sponge"
Even then it was clear that editors and professional communities were watching the studio. The updated site launched in 2015, and the first selections were not long in coming. On 8 May a case study of the bureau's new site appeared on Behance, the portfolio network owned by Adobe. The network's curators highlight the best work on it, and that was precisely the first step toward international roundups.
From 24 May to 14 August 2015 the site went through a series of selections on CSSDA, CSS Nectar, CSS Light, CSS Winner, BestCSS, CSSReel and Awwwards. These platforms aggregate the best sites and hand out awards in individual categories. On 8 August Awwwards named the work Site of the Day. For the American version of the site, CSSDA gave a separate mark: on 14 August 2015 the site received a Special Kudos award with a score of 7.57. In parallel, the bureau's work was chosen for Behance's Best of lists, including a mark for the Madonna animation on 30 June 2015.
Attention spread beyond design communities as well. On 21 September 2015 Sostav included Madonna in its roundup "The Best Projects of the Summer from Behance" in the motion design section. For the advertising market this was a clear signal: the studio produces work that can be shown to clients as a benchmark.
Asia, Europe and new commissions
The Oulaka gallery was not the only platform to note the updated site. The same wave mentioned SJ63, UeHtml and 68design, all of which collect web design examples for a professional audience. Thus a site made for the bureau itself became a working example for studios looking for reference points in interfaces and presentation.
In 2016 the circle of marks widened. On 4 February Korrespondent wrote about the Furgoneta site, and that same day CSS Winner named the work Site of the Day. In March Behance included the work for Business Logic Group in its Best of roundup. The studio also kept up its public work with audiences: on 20 October 2016 the bureau held a seminar, "How to Start Your Own Web Studio."
That path continued in 2017. On 23 and 25 August the site of the singer Artem Pivovarov received a CSS Winner Site of the Day mark, and Awwwards named it Site of the Day and honored it with a Developer award, which assesses the technical quality of the build. On 25 September Behance included the Helicopter View work in its Best of roundup.
On 28 September 2017 the Rating of the Runet placed the studio fourth in the digital agency creativity category. That place in the ranking was the result of nearly three years of marks that began with the website update in 2015.
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