Seven years as Awwwards Agency of the Year: what we learned

Agency of the Year is one of the Awwwards annual awards. Where a Site of the Day rewards a single website, this one looks at a studio's body of work over a full year. Receiving it once is a privilege. Receiving it seven years in a row made us stop and ask what, exactly, we'd been doing right, so we could keep doing it on purpose.

Here's our honest answer.

1. Craft is a daily habit

An annual award looks at a whole year of work, so one brilliant project won't carry you. What carries a studio is its baseline: a small site for a cause gets the same care as a big launch. Consistency is less glamorous than a breakthrough, and far more useful to clients.

2. Design and development belong in the same room

The vast majority of our design and development happens in-house, side by side, from the first sketch to the last fix. Designers know what the code can do, and developers help shape the experience from the start. When an idea needs a specialist we don't have, we bring in trusted partners. That closeness is why ambitious ideas survive the build. It's also why we created and open-sourced Locomotive Scroll: a tool born from our own projects that we wanted to share with the community.

3. Clients are part of the team

Our best work has always grown out of relationships. Clients who share their real constraints, trust the process and push back make the work better. Stories like our years alongside Lightship show how far that trust can go.

4. Partners make you bigger than your headcount

Photographers, directors, 3D artists, branding studios, content teams: the right collaborators raise the ceiling on what a studio can deliver. Our friendship with Chivalry, told in how we became more than just collaborators, is one example.

5. Awards are a by-product

A trophy recognizes craft as judged by peers. It can't tell you whether a site helped a client grow, and we never present it that way. We're proud of every award, and we keep them in their place: a great reason to celebrate the team, and no substitute for doing right by the people who hire us.

For most of the streak, we said thank you and went back to work. After the sixth title, we let ourselves have a little fun. With Chivalry, we created Dynasty, a deliberately over-the-top tribute to sports dynasties that celebrates the 2018 to 2023 run. Its message is the one we believe in: design is a team sport, the team comes first, and every client we partner with is an extension of that team. The site even carries a note explaining that it was made in a spirit of humility and fun. The seventh title followed in 2024.

What it means if you're choosing an agency

An Agency of the Year title tells you that a studio's peers have recognized its craft, consistently. Whether that studio fits your project, your budget or your timeline is a separate question. Look at work relevant to your challenge, meet the people who would actually do it, and ask how they handle the parts no jury ever sees. Our guides on how to choose a web design agency and what awards and portfolios really tell you go through it step by step.

Streaks end; habits can stay. We'll keep doing what earned the recognition in the first place: taking craft seriously without taking ourselves too seriously, building alongside our clients, and sharing what we learn. Want to see the work behind the titles? Our case studies are the best place to start, beginning with Scout Motors and K72.