Our London-based designer, Ngaire Ackerley recently traveled to East Africa on holiday. During her travels, she was lucky enough to visit mountain gorillas in Rwanda and see the amazing work that the people at Volcanoes National Park are doing to help preserve their existence.

Many of us will have read the book or seen the movie ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ and can recount the work of Dian Fossey and her involvement with the Karisoke Research Center. This work is still being carried on today.

Set up by Dian Fossey in 1978, Gorilla Fund is a charity dedicated to the conservation and protection of gorillas and their habitats in Rwanda. Less than 800 gorillas are left in the entire world. These gentle giants are amazing up-close and it would be such a shame to see them disappear from existence.

Below are some of Ngaire’s photographs from her visit with the Amahoro Gorilla group.

All images are copyright 2011 of Ngaire Ackerley.

On 27 January 1945, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. It is on the anniversary of that date that we commemorate all genocides of our recent human history.

From our London office, Ngaire will be attending the Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in London on Thursday, 26 January.  If you’re in the UK and would like to attend a commemoration event, you can find one nearest you on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website.

As the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2012 is Speak Up, Speak Out, we are encouraged to consider what is happening around us and to speak out against hatred and discrimination. For more information, please visit http://www.speakupnow.org.uk.

Last week, a lovely coupon flyer arrived at Liam Dempsey’s house in greater Philadelphia. Liam was really surprised and pleased to see that Target, the massive superstore chain, had produced a very cute and engaging design with some absolutely fantastic content. The short poems, haikus, and clean, simple graphics worked beautifully together.  We’ve shared a few images of what we think are the better poems.

Our Philadelphia office recently came across a benefit concert to help victims of human trafficking coming up next week.

Eager to help a good cause, we thought we’d share it for those who are interested in supporting Dawn’s Place, a refuge in Philadelphia for women who have been victims of human trafficking.

Keep the Dream Alive is a concert that will be held on Friday, January 20 at 7:30pm at Neumann University.

For more information contact Melissa Hickey at Hickeym@neumann.edu

As the holiday season gets closer our Philadelphia office was graced with a joyful package to mark the season. We thought the package was a lovely way to thank those who have helped a business have a good year.

We were very happy to be able to help Tim Whiting and his colleagues at Whiting Law Group this year — and we’re very grateful for the beautiful holiday package.

The t-shirt that we won from DuckDuckGo arrived this week! You can read about how we won it on our website, or you can just enjoy the photos of the shirt.

Recently our London office was graced with a new edition … a new MacBook Pro laptop. Geared with Apple’s latest operating system, this new machine is significantly more powerful and faster than the one it replaces. It’s great to have it as part of the team!

Ngaire from our London office snapped a few pics on her smart phone (excuse the quality) during the unveiling process so you don’t miss out on how beautiful it is!

Working in the creative industry means keeping up with technology. With a passion for photography, our own Ngaire Ackerley, recently upgraded her camera after realising her old camera wouldn’t work with larger lens and didn’t shoot well in low light.

Ngaire’s new Nikon D7000 is quite a leap from her previous D40x, with one of the major attractions being the ability to shoot in low light with a high ISO setting. The improved low-light capabilities will certainly come in handy when shooting gorillas in the forests of Rwanda during her upcoming trip to Africa. With the D7000 16.2 megapixel camera, Ngaire looks forward to the clarity of large images.

Keep your eyes peeled to our Tumblr page in December as Ngaire will try her best to share a few of the African photographs taken on her D7000 both here and on her own website.