I Went Above and Beyond to Get the Front End Job I Wanted but It Didn't Work

At the end of the day you wouldn't want to work in a place that isn't a good fit, so it's for the best when this is figured out sooner rather than later. This is something that should be consciously explored in the interview by both sides.

My 2c on the exercise, that infographic chart has a 3d layout with subtle effects, and because of that it's not really a design that can be practically translated with CSS/HTML (without images). The above and beyond solution would be something done in 3d, i.e. Three.js., otherwise the cheap solution is to use static images with JS interactivity (something like a fake 3d with images). Using CSS for the 3d effects is also possible but it would need to be justified because there are other better solutions, depending on whether you want to optimize speed or quality, for example there is probably a way to do this with only HTML, but it's probably very tedious and unmaintainable.