The ranking's description of the studio was brief and precise:
"Good products and service, many awards, first-tier clients."
Tagline would repeat the same formula the following year. Who wrote those words — the ranking's compilers or the studio itself when filling out its profile — is not stated in the publication, so the line should be read as a ranking assessment rather than an independent verdict on the quality of the work.
The ranking and its place in the industry
Compilations of this kind compare digital studios by size, pricing and client list. For a client, the price category matters above all: the word "Expensive" says more about an agency than general talk of creativity. Sponge's profile gives its founding year as 2009. In its own materials the agency sometimes names 2000 as its founding year, but outside sources date its history from 2009. The exact date, 22.11.2009, comes from CSS Winner, while according to Cyclopedia the studio was called Layner from 2003 to 2009 and was renamed Sponge in 2007.
The agency's visibility was built from specific episodes. In December 2013 its website received an Honorable Mention at Awwwards, the international web design award with daily Site of the Day honors. In February 2014 Splashnology included a Sponge project in its "30 Dark Web Designs for Inspiration" roundup, where the agency placed 23rd out of 30. In May 2014 the studio submitted seven entries to the 15th Young Photographers and Advertising Directors Competition, won no prizes, but that same year the Estetico.me site and the logo for "Pervy Gorodskoy" were included in Ukrainian Design.
Looks.fm, motion and a run of honors
In 2015 the main public story was Looks.fm, a service created by a group that included Bohdan Hnatiuk. The correspondent wrote about it in February and March 2015, and the project was led by Kyrylo Soliar, later executive director of Sponge D&D. Also in 2015, Sponge released the Alien video on Behance, which landed in Adobe's Motion Graphics category, and in June a work titled Madonna appeared on Behance. In September 2015 Sostav included it in its roundup of the summer's best Behance projects.
The core web capital accumulated through contest sites. From May 24 to August 14, 2015, the agency's projects collected a run of honors on CSSDA, CSS Nectar, CSS Light, CSS Winner, BestCSS, CSSReel and Awwwards, where the site earned Site of the Day on August 8. For the American version of the site, One Page Love, BestCSS and CSSDA Special Kudos were added. It was precisely this string of honors that stood behind the phrase "many awards" in the ranking.
Clients and recognition, 2016–2019
In 2016 the studio's work kept appearing in industry roundups. On February 4 the correspondent wrote about the Furgoneta site; that same day CSS Winner marked it as Site of the Day, and on March 6 the Carts Guru site received the same honor. On March 29 Behance included the Business Logic Group project in its roundup of the best work. From January to March 2016 Kyrylo Soliar appeared in IGate roundups as executive director of Sponge D&D. In October 2016 the agency held a seminar, "How to Start Your Own Web Studio," announced in the DOU calendar.
In 2017 the client was the singer Artem Pyvovarov. His site earned CSS Winner Site of the Day on August 23 and Awwwards Site of the Day along with a Developer honor on August 25. On September 25 Behance published the Helicopter View project, and on September 28 the Rating of the Runet placed the agency 4th in its digital agency creativity category. That same year Tagline gave the studio 97th place in its TOP-100 digital production.
In 2018 the Rating of the Runet placed Sponge 10th with 51 prizes, and in September, in a job posting on a Ukrainian portal, the agency described itself as holding "more than 60 awards in two years." In 2019 the ranking gave the studio 37th place, also with 51 prizes, and named its CEO as Bohdan Hnatiuk.
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