Last Wednesday, Rondi Davies, Evidence Design’s senior content developer and open-water swim-enthusiast, became the fastest American — male or female — to swim around Manhattan! She completed the 28.5 mile course in 5 hours, 44  minutes, 47 seconds, breaking the 16-year old record set by Australia’s Shelley Taylor-Smith.

Rondi swam through heavy chop, past enormous barges; the Staten Island Ferry delayed its departure to allow the swimmers to pass! Evidence Design colleagues and family were out on a Brooklyn pier to cheer for Rondi as she rounded lower Manhattan and headed up the East River. Click on the links to learn more about the Manhattan Island Match Race and Record Attempt and Record breaking NYC Swim Season.

Bravo Rondi — amazing accomplishment!

As we posted earlier, Science Storms received the Cross Media Award in AIGA’s 365: Design Effectiveness 2011 Competition.  Winning designs  are now on display at the AIGA National Design Center, as well as online in its virtual gallery, the AIGA Design Archives. In December, the exhibition will begin traveling around the United States and then become part of the AIGA Design Archives housed at the Denver Art Museum. Lots of opportunities to go see the Science Storms display and other award winners — check it out!

Photo by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging

Reconstructing dinosaurs from scant fossil evidence requires enormous amounts of science, art, and imagination. Tonight BBC Four will air How to Build a Dinosaur, a documentary that features the work of many of the scientists, artists, and mount makers who created the displays in the Dinosaur Hall. If you are in the UK, check it out!  Most of us in the US won’t be able to watch, but the BBC website features a clip about fabricating the baby T. rex,  shown above.

Photo Credit: Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging

The Dinosaur Hall at The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened this weekend, and fans of fossils are enthusiastic about the exhibit’s fresh approach to displaying and understanding these magnificent creatures. Our favorite reviews so far include the pithy prose of LA Observed, the fantastic photos in LA Curbed, and the insightful article in our hometown paper, The New York Times. Congratulations to the team for the years of creative collaboration. Visit our Work page for pictures — more coming soon.

Taking break from exhibition news, we would like to share the impressive achievement of Senior Content Specialist, Rondi Davies.  Many of Rondi’s extracurricular activities involve long distance running and open water swimming all around New York City and environs. Recently she and friend Dave Barra organized the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim, a 120 mile marathon down the Hudson River from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in Catskill to Brooklyn’s Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Over 7 days in July, Rondi, Dave and 19 other swimmers dove into the river at a different bridge each morning, sometimes swimming as many as 20 miles a day, navigating changing currents, large boats, and sweltering heat. The event raised money for environmental and open-water swimmers groups, and plans are underway to do it again in 2012. Our congratulations to Rondi and Dave on the success of the 8 Bridges Swim! Learn more about the event, see pictures, and read lots of great news coverage at the link above.