CSS Winner describes Trendon Store succinctly: it is a multi-brand shop that unites designers and brands. On the platform, this formula was given in the original: “multi brand shop which unites designers and brands.” For a storefront of this type, the task is more complex than that of an ordinary online store. It must simultaneously display a catalog of several brands, preserve each brand’s identity, and avoid drowning in navigation, so the site is judged not only on looks but also on how quickly a visitor finds what they need.
CSS Winner, an online resource with daily selections, marks sites as “Site of the Day,” “Star,” and “Nominee.” Entries are evaluated on several criteria: design, functionality, usability, and content. Trendon Store’s overall score is composed of four indicators. Design received 7.5 points, functionality 7.6, usability 7.7, and content 7.6. The total score was 7.6. The jury named usability as the strongest aspect, and this aligns with the project’s logic: in a multi-brand store, navigation works like a salesperson guiding the customer between displays.
The Path Through Awwwards
Trendon Store did not begin with a CSS Winner nomination. Back on June 13, 2016, the site received an Honorable Mention on Awwwards, an international platform where projects are evaluated by a professional jury of designers and developers. An Honorable Mention is considered an honorable mention; it ranks below the platform’s top awards, but for a young project it is already recognition from the professional community. Four weeks later, the site received a mark on CSS Winner, and this combination of two platforms became a typical trajectory for the studio’s projects at the time: first a mark from one jury, then a higher score from another.
Trendon Store was not the only Sponge studio project in 2016 to come to the attention of competitions. The studio’s founder, Bohdan Hnatiuk, consistently developed the direction of working with online stores and brand websites. In the same year, the UD competition catalog awarded a work titled Trendon Online Shop with the Best of B-1 award.
Golden Site and Rankings
The studio’s best results that year are also visible in Russian rankings. At the Golden Site 2016 award, Trendon Store received an award first in its nomination, and along with it, the Furgoneta site also became first in the nomination. In the developer ranking, which is built on accumulated points, the studio took places from 13th to 18th, scoring 10 points. For a market where hundreds of agencies compete for the same orders, such a place means that the bureau’s work regularly appears before clients and colleagues.
A year earlier, the picture was similar. At Golden Site 2015, the Sponge site took first place in the “Digital Agency Website” category, and in the “VRK” ranking for the 2015/2016 season, the studio took eighth place among digital agencies with 29 points. In the 2016 Runet Creativity Ranking, the bureau was in 11th place. These figures help show that the CSS Winner awards formed a consistent picture rather than being a one-off success for a single project.
multi brand shop which unites designers and brands
The formula from the CSS Winner description itself well reflects the meaning of the work: to unite different market participants at a single point. For a studio that builds websites for brands and stores, this task is familiar from many commissions, and Trendon Store showed that even a complex storefront structure can be clear and convenient.
What Came Next
Interest in the studio’s work continued the following year. In 2017, the Pivovarov site received Site of the Day on CSS Winner on August 23 with a score of 7.6, and the next day received Special Kudos on CSSDA. On August 25, the project was recognized on Awwwards: Site of the Day and Developer Award. In 2017, the studio also entered the Runet Creativity Ranking in 4th place, scoring 23.32 points.
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