We won’t be posting an inspirational photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s with a one-line snippet of a massively inspirational, cultural-shifting speech he once gave or—god forbid—superimposing such a quote over a dude who just won a football game.

We will, however, be posting this badass photo of him in Chicago schooling local civil rights leader Al Raby in a game of pool.

After such a tumultuous year, I feel like we could all use a little inspired levity.

Wishing a most giving, kind, productive Martin Luther King, Jr. day to you all.

We’re hereby requesting all available kind thoughts, prayers, incantations, spell-weaving, positive vibes, and general well-wishing for our cat, Allister McVittes, as he goes into surgery this morning. He’s been with us for 12 years and around for at least 4 years before that and he means the world to us.

We’ll be playing this song on repeat until we get the guy back.

We’re happy to announce yet another collaboration with creative collective Pel (wrote up some other work we did with Pel a while back, including that Web site). This one’s less heavy or serious than our usual work together but, nonetheless, it’s one that’s close to both our hearts and that of Pel principal, Paul Signh.

A while back, Paul ran a music blog named Forgotten Favorite that endeavored to share with the world rediscovered classics (at least ten years old).

Now, so many years later, Pel and raven + crow studio are partnering up to bring Forgotten Favorite back to life.

The site’s namesake is “My Forgotten Favorite”, a song by seminal noise pop band and common favorite between us, Velocity Girl. The song also serves as the inaugural post by Paul. I follow it up with one of my all-time favorite bands, Huggy Bear.

We created the new design and site branding, pulling the color palette directly from the 1991 Slumberland single for “My Forgotten Favorite”.

You can read both write-ups and listen to the songs over at Forgotten Favorite.

Paul + I will be regularly posting new…old songs to the site and employing friends and fellow lovers of music to write up their own forgotten favorites, so stay tuned!

Though it’s far from native to Southern California, we’ve noticed, since moving to Los Angeles, that eucalyptus can be found far and wide in LA and neighboring vicinities.

We’ve been personal fans of the tree/plant ever since that scene in season 1 of Lost when Sun helps Jack treat Shannon’s acute asthma by grinding up eucalyptus leaves. Eucalyptus oil has long had various practical uses, from acting as a solvent to a deodorizer to an insect repellent to an antiseptic. But initial research—and some empirical evidence from non-western cultures—shows the oil may also help to break down mucous in airways, allowing for easier breathing for sufferers of asthma.

Katie’s had asthma her whole life. When we were back in Brooklyn, the winters were especially tough, with both the frigid air outside and the reduced air quality indoors due to traditional steam radiators and (we think) the layers of lead paint on them. In addition to buying commercial eucalyptus oil at supplement stores, another thing we liked to do to stave off asthma attacks and, generally, promote better breathing, was to buy some freshly cut eucalyptus from the farmers’ market or flower shops, bundle it in twine, and hang it in our shower under the shower head. The resulting steam from a hot shower allows the oils to be released and, as an added bonus, gives off a pleasant scene to start your day.

Now that we’ve relocated to Los Angeles, we’ve noticed the tree—native to Australia—growing abundantly around town, evidently largely due to the efforts of famed tobacco tycoon, state forester from 1886-1888, and eucalyptus-lover Abbott Kinney. Better known as the developer of Venice, Kinney also championed the many potential uses of the plant in his time—chief among them, landscaping to shield from high winds and abundant erosion.

The tree enjoyed a massive boom in LA-area planting when projections were made about the fast-growing tree as a source of timber in hardwood-short times. Though the wood turned out to be unsuitable for that purpose (it evidently grows brittle, cracking and twisting as it dries), we’ll take the more medicinal and decorative aspects of the plant as welcome ones in our daily lives. Makes for some nice impromptu photos too.

Read LA writer Nathan Masters’ article “Who Eucalyptized Southern California” to find out more about eucalyptus’ history in Los Angeles. Below, from Masters’ article, “Two men demonstrate the girth of a 25-year-old eucalytpus tree on the L. J. Rose ranch in Rosemead, circa 1900.”, photo courtesy Title Insurance and Trust / C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, USC Libraries.

Two years ago today, we made the uncharacteristically impulsive move to bring one Mr. Owen Hamilton III on-board at the already close-knit raven + crow studio, seen here in a photo from our old Brooklyn studio. This photo actually went on to be a part of a New York real estate company’s rebranding campaign, marking Hamilton’s first big ‘win’ for the studio.

Hamilton’s gone on to win accolades from both close coworkers who’ve known him from the start to strangers he meets on the street, unabashedly assaulting them with his unflagging positivity and, often, giant paws.

Here’s wishing Owen many years to come serving as raven + crow studio’s star employee and charismatic figurehead. Bully for you, sir! Bully for you.

Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful passage into the new year tonight. Stay safe, stay happy, and try to remember to appreciate what you have and what’s to come.

Love you guys.

Almost three months in to our new role as Creative Directors and show runners for MooShoes Los Angeles (sorry—the city’s shop talk has finally started to sink in), we’ve created a set of four prints + matching stickers that pull some of the illustration and hand-lettering work we did for the store wallpaper, all of which are now available for sale in the LA store, the NYC store, and at mooshoes.com.

The prints were printed locally in Los Angeles at an environmentally friendly, low-waste printer on partially recycled content, heavy-weight paper. We obviously wanted to make sure these were as low-impact as possible and, at the same, end up with a high-quality print on paper that would really do a good job absorbing big blocks of bold color for these.

Once we find a good match in terms of local manufacturers, we’re planning to take the designs and start applying them to some apparel—tees, pullover hoodies, tanks once it warms back up.

In the meantime, fee free to stop by either the Los Angeles or New York store to check the prints out in person or order them online. Below, all four on display individually in the LA store.

Happy everything, everybody.

Music today from New York City’s Niia Bertino, better known by her simplified stage name, Niia.

Niia was chosen as one of ten breakout artists of 2014 by our very own Mr. Jason Bentley, czar of all things musical in Los Angeles and music director at our local public radio station, KCRW. With her smooth, soulful voice and impressive pop hooks, we’d be inclined to agree with Mr. Bentley on his choice. Case in point, her single “Body”, from her Generation Blue EP, released this past October. It’s tamely likable enough to appeal to everyone from edgy seekers of breakout pop to the moms of edgy seekers of breakout pop and its catchy chorus will likely have you humming the tune all day long.

Scrolling through Niia’s soundcloud page, she’s got quite a few songs that are available for free download, including a number of pretty great covers (anyone who knows, much less covers, Jai Paul’s BTSTU is good by me) to some impressive just-released collaborations between Niia and Providence producer, The Range (AKA James Hinton).

As if being a celebrated up-and-coming artist, coming from a long line highly talented musicians, and being a Bond girl (singer) wasn’t enough, Niia’s also given a Ted Talk on how she overcame severe stage fright and connecting with your audience. It’s actually really funny/touching—check it out below too.

We’ll start with: We don’t think this is racist?

For the longest time, I personally pigeon-holed burning incense along with wearing patchouli. It was something dreadlocked, Baja-wearing hippies did. But, be it due to a softening to unnecessary prejudices as I get older or a more general desire to seek out ways to chillax^® as I get older…or just getting older, I am totally into incense now.

Katie got me a smaller incense burner a while back and, more recently, we picked up this adobe teepee burner from the same company, Incienso de Santa Fe. An incense company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico (thank you, Spanish class), Incienso de Santa Fe creates “incense that is unique to the Southwestern United States,” using the native area woods to formulate their fragrances found “nowhere else but in the west.”

Having lived in California “officially” for a year now, I have to back up the company’s claim. The west, like the east, does have geographically specific scents that we’ll suddenly stumble across when we’re out hiking or even just walking through our neighborhood, Beachwood Canyon. Smells of dry brush; hedges of lavender; smokey, dusty hills—all of it’s started to come to smell like home to us and Incienso’s products call up place and time with their scents in a warm, comforting way. As they put it:

“People tell us our incense makes them remember all kinds of wonderful things…the perfume of the Painted Desert, a crackling campfire on a high mountain trail, the morning mist settling in a Northern New Mexican village. If you have not tried our fragrances before, we know you will find them very special.”

We kind of just like how burning their incense snaps us into a more tranquil place at the end of a long day. As the company spells out on their site, they use only dead trees for their incense—no trees are cut down for their products. And, as you can see from their Web site, they offer a wide range of incense scents (from piñon to mesquite to hickory) + themed burners (from chimineas to steam engines to tiny southwestern churches).

So, if you’re looking for a last-minute gift, we’d suggest these guys. They’re reasonably priced, unique, and go a long way to bringing some warmth into your winter.