WordPress Shines Bright at the 28th Annual Webby Awards

The best of the Internet was on full display this week at the 28th Annual Webby Awards, which were presented in front of a live audience at New York City’s iconic Cipriani Wall Street. 

Hosted by comedian and talk show host Amber Ruffin, the star-studded event recognized some of the most impressive digital projects of the past year, including a large crop of WordPress and
WP Engine-powered sites.  

The Webby Awards are organized by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), and recognize digital excellence across a wide range of categories, including websites and mobile experiences, videos, advertisements, apps, social media, podcasts, games, and immersive experiences with AI and the Metaverse. 

Hundreds of projects were nominated for various accolades, from Best Music Podcast (Questlove Supreme) to Best Entertainment Video Series (Variety’s Actors on Actors) and beyond.

In addition to these primary categories, the Webby Awards also highlight digital projects by bestowing special honors, such as The Webby People’s Voice Awards which are determined by the broader online community. 

“The Webby Awards truly represent the best of the web, showcasing projects that inspire countless digital creators, builders, and innovators,” said WP Engine Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer Heather Brunner.  

“Each year, the event goes above and beyond to highlight digital excellence, and we’re honored to see an increasing number of WordPress and WP Engine customers and partners among the list of Winners and Nominees.”

As is customary, the list of Webby Winners was revealed in the weeks leading up to the live event, and despite the broad range of platforms and technologies represented by this year’s Winners, WordPress projects stood out across multiple award categories.

To further spotlight these outstanding projects, WP Engine and The Webby Awards will soon reveal the fifth annual Crafted With Code series, a showcase delving into the how-they-did-it stories behind select Webby-recognized websites built with WordPress. 

In the meantime, check out some of the WP Engine partners and customers whose projects made waves at the 2024 Webby Awards!

Webby Award Winner: Guild

Offering a curated marketplace of learning programs, dedicated career coaches, and tools to help employees explore and grow within their careers, Guild is an educational platform that helps employers provide tuition-free education, skilling, and career mobility to their workforce.

Named a 2023 CNBC Disruptor, Guild faced a unique challenge amidst rapid growth: communicating its diverse offerings to different audiences in distinct yet interconnected ways while maintaining a cohesive, bold, and engaging narrative. 

To solve this, WP Engine agency partner Athletics partnered with Guild to design and develop a new site experience that extends Guild’s brand identity and storytelling into the digital realm. 

The site, which won a Webby Award for General Desktop & Mobile Sites in the Employment category, effectively targets Guild’s primary audiences—employers, learning partners, and working adult learners—enabling each group to understand Guild’s unique offerings and their role in driving career mobility at scale.

Webby People’s Voice Award Winner: Checkology

Checkology is a free e-learning platform intended to help web users of all ages hone the ability to identify credible information, seek out reliable news sources, and apply critical thinking to the online content they consume.

Built on WP Engine’s WordPress platform, the Checkology website is full of engaging, authoritative lessons led by journalists and media experts on subjects like news media bias and conspiratorial thinking, which help users develop the skills to fight misinformation with news literacy.

Funded and submitted by the News Literacy Project, the Checkology website earned a Webby People’s Voice Award for Responsible Information, which recognizes web products, platforms, software, and other technologies effectively working to combat disinformation, misinformation, and false or misleading information online.

Webby People’s Voice Award Winner: The Society of Experiential Graphic Design

The Society of Experiential Graphic Design is a multidisciplinary community of graphic and exhibition designers, fabricators and architects, media developers and creative technologists, students, and educators with a common motivation: to enrich the human experience through inclusive, intuitive, emotive, engaging, and sustainable design.

To build a visually engaging and interactive experience worthy of this talented creative community, agency experts at Wide Eye Creative reimagined the entire storytelling arc of the group’s website, leaning into a site narrative and content strategy that centers wonder and connection to take site visitors on an emotional journey through design.

The WP Engine-powered site earned a Webby People’s Choice Award for General Desktop & Mobile Sites in the Community category thanks to its emotionally resonant approach and seamless navigation.

Webby Award Honoree: LUMA Vision

LUMA Vision is a medical device development company on a mission to build a future where cardiologists and electrophysiologists  have access to better, more innovative technologies. 

The company worked with WP Engine agency partner WONDR to bring this story to life, showcasing the expertise of LUMA Vision’s team, which operates at the intersection of hardware, software, and machine learning with the hope of radically advancing the landscape of health-tech innovation.

The site, powered by WP Engine, was named a Webby Award Honoree among General Desktop and Mobile Sites in the Health and Wellness category.

Webby Award Honoree: Embark

Dedicated to education savings, Embark is a financial services company that helps families plan for and manage post-secondary education costs. 

Faced with the need to create a new website and a comprehensive brand presence, Embark sought assistance from digital agency Art & Science, whose team harnessed its design and creative expertise to develop a new brand identity and website that effectively communicates Embark’s message.  

Using WP Engine for a headless WordPress architecture, Art & Science delivered a high-performing website featuring API response times in double-digit milliseconds. 

In addition to being recognized as a 2024 Webby Awards Honoree for General Desktop and Mobile Sites in the Financial Services/Banking category, Embark and Art & Science have received additional praise for the new site, including winning “Headless Project of the Year” as part of WP Engine’s inaugural Agency Partner Awards.

Webby Award Nominees: CIC and Harvard Law Review

WP Engine agency partner 10up was recognized multiple times by Webby Awards, including for its work on two projects built on WP Engine’s platform. 

The website for Harvard Law Review, which was redesigned by 10up earlier this year, was nominated in the Law category of Websites and Mobile Sites. The new website offers a compelling, easy-to-navigate experience that reflects the publication’s authority and reputation for excellence. 

Additionally, the new CIC.com was nominated under the Real Estate category for Websites and Mobile Sites. 10up collaborated with the CIC team to reimagine its website, designing and building a modern, expansive hub that aligned with the company’s growth goals. 

Building with WP Engine’s industry leading WordPress platform and powerful developer tools, 10up ensured both sites deliver world-class performance, security, and reliability, showcasing the agency’s commitment to excellence and innovation.

Webby Award Nominee: CMYK

WP Engine agency partner CMYK revamped its own website this year, and in doing so, received a nomination for a General Desktop and Mobile Site Webby Award in the Professional Services and Self-Promotion category. 

CMYK is a full-service digital agency specializing in creative website and video production, empowering brands to share their stories through beautiful digital experiences.

The agency’s new website, built on WP Engine’s  platform, illustrates the company’s passion for color, animation, interactivity, and intuitive navigation.

As users scroll through the site, CMYK’s portfolio shines through engaging case studies that highlight the company’s diverse range of previous projects and creative solutions.

Webby Award Nominee: Hawkridge Austin

Creative design  experts at DD.NYC helped create a bespoke luxury brand identity for Hawkridge Austin, a land development project focused on building Austin’s newest luxury community, located just minutes from central Austin in Dripping Springs, TX.

The new, custom digital experience establishes this vision and brand identity, while providing the underlying infrastructure for a fast, performant user experience.

Featuring simple, elegant parallax effects paired with high-quality images of the surrounding landscapes and existing custom home projects, the Hawkridge Austin site was nominated for a General Desktop and Mobile Sites award in the Real Estate category.

Celebrate Web Excellence With The Webbys!

Visit The Webby Awards’ website for a full breakdown of the Winners, including Special Achievement Winners, and make sure to follow them on Instagram and X for more content.

And visit WP Engine to find out more about powering your next outstanding digital project with confidence.