5 Designs Sold Until Sold-Out

Assalaamu alaikum,

Yes – you read correctly these designs, once sold out, will not return (in the near future). The designs are:

• Ramadan – Fast/Eat
• Humza Rocks
• USS FOB ( A personal favorite)
• Somali Star
• State of Wudu

You are probably thinking, “Hey guys, these shirts are so awesome. Man I want a peanut butter sandwich”

Well in response I would tell you not to worry because inshaAllah we will replace them with some hotter shirts and these designs might come back someday if we do a retro flashback. I’d also advise you to get a peanut butter sandwich.

Really it is a matter of space, we need to get rid of the old to make room for the new. Enjoy the $9.99 price tag! Offer is good until shirts run out, happy shopping.

Salaam. Z.

It’s been a Year?

A big welcome and air-high-five to Zamin! This is going to be one of the awesomest teams you’re going to be a part of …where getting picked last is a good thing, and “sprint” is the company Ledo works at and you can laugh awkwardly at jokes and pretend you understand them without anyone knowing because its a conference call.

This post marks about a year since I’ve joined MuslimTees. As a team we near the 2-year mark of MT itself. They say most businesses fail within the first 2 years, so I’m pretty sure we’re doing something right, alhamdulillah.

Three of the most important things I’ve learned so far: Discipline, Action and Direction.

- “We do what we need to do when we need to do it, so that we can do what we want to do when we want to do it.”

That has been the MT Team slogan and has greatly influenced the way I work. Procrastination is a ridiculous habit that many of us have, no doubt. But while we struggle to break the habit, it becomes harder to go backwards. Lack of procrastination: Action, action action. 

Execution of direction:

A new mission statement that has been formulated by our visions and aspirations, and gives us direction.

- “Offering fresh apparel to address and inspire a creative, bold, and global Muslim Identity”

We’ve narrowed it down using more descriptive words that allow us to be more broad yet focused. Like looking through various lenses…It’s the same picture but different ways of looking at it. We want to serve all people looking for unique style, with the American Muslim consumer being our target market. We don’t plan on only making shirts, but sending a cultural message across. 

We’re Muslim – a global identity, backed up with a specific American ID. I could be very confident in what I’m saying, but not neccesarily so! As America is a melting pot, a mosaic, a salad of cultures and diversities, each person is free to associate themselves with whatever culture that suits them. So it’s definately a bumpy ride in trying to define ourselves, with the cultural and ethnic baggage our ancestors have passed down to us, our religion and our current setting.

Where does that lead us? MuslimTees.com in a nutshell. I hope you’re not allergic.

One last thought to leave everyone with: The four Ps of marketing: Produce, Price, Place and Promote.

wsalams

-nora

“Ladies And Gentleman; Zamin has entered the Building”

‘*cough cough’ is this thing on? *(static)* Can you hear me? Good.

Ahem..

For lack of a better way to begin this; i have decided to start the only way I know how:

Elders; Brothers; Sisters; Respected Personalities; Entities and Egos,

As-Salam Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wabarakatu.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce myself; the 4th member of the MT fam. My name is Zamin-Redha Anwarali K. Dharsi; but you can call me Susan if it makes you happy.(not really, call me Zamin.Thats not a request); and I have been dubbed the new ‘Gallery Manager’ at MT, although im not so sure how I feel about this yet seeing as it makes me sound like Im a 30-something New York woman; but I digress..It may have been said many times; But for what its worth, It is never easy writing about ones’ self. We all know who we are, and the task of describing to others who we are is so daunting becauseno matter how much I write; these words cannot and will not describe who i am completely.

First; the artsy fartsy description:

Im a poet; Im an artist; Im a dreamer; Im a philosopher. I find beauty and I believe that Allah (SwT) has given me this talent so that I may capture it and use it to bring myself and others closer to him. Growing up, I always looked at the world around me and saw beauty; and for some strange reason I felt oddly connected to it. Sure, it could have been my adonis physique and Grecian good looks; but I felt it on a more metaphysical level..as if there was this beauty in the most simplest of things; be it a rubescent fire hydrant on the street corner or a mustard line dividing the street into segments; and somehow only I wasn’t oblivious to this beauty. As I grew, I began to truly understand this beauty. I realized that Allah has created each and every one of us with a gift, and people in history; scientists, doctors, inventors, masterminds; have used their gift to really make a difference. Allah has given us Aql; and allowed us to progress as a society and race (not like the arian race; this is the human-race folks); and so even a simple red hydrant can be so beautiful when you look at it and realize that someone used the gift that Allah gave him to design every angle, every line, every curve so perfectly. And if the hydrant, which is an invention that has barely changed since its introduction, can be perfect; then its creator must be perfect. And if the creator (Birdsill Holly that is) can be perfect, it can only be because Allah (s.w.t) has created him in perfection, because he himself is the most perfect. And it is my hope that inshallah, I am able to use the Aql and talent which Allah has bestowed upon me to truly make a difference; so I thank you readers for allowing me the opportunity to do so.

Alas; this wouldn’t be complete without some factual information, so in true ‘Zamin’ style, heres a list of some specifics:

1. Born in Dubai, U.A.E; the land of Nissan Patrols, Pajero’s and Al-Mallah Cafeteria

2. My father’s Indian-Paki; my mothers African and Indian; which makes me some sort of strange Pan-Asian American half-breed

3. I moved to the United States when I was 12 and I practically was raised here, which is great because like many of you, I am just as confused as to where Im really from..(not really; but you know what I mean..)

5. For the last 2 years I have studied Graphic Design, and alhamdulillah I have just been accepted into one of the most prestigious private design schools in America with a scholarship where I will be studying Branding, Marketing and Public Relations

6. I dream of owning a gigantic collection of CD cases one day and covering a full wall with them; mostly because I think CD art is pretty slick and probably one of the most under-appreciated modes of design to date..

7. Im addicted to Cream Soda, Fuze Juices and the color turquoise (its the answer to any color dilemma; trust me)

8. Im fascinated by colors. I sometimes spend my days in paint stores just staring at the wall of color swatches…(the paint fumes may have something to do with that..)

9. I have served as MSA Advertising Director, PR Manager, Communications Coordinator for the past year, during which we won Student Organization of the Year

10. You were so busy reading this that you didn’t realize #4 is missing (*Mwahahahaha)

So I guess this is where I ask for your leave. If you feel like discussing politics, religion, the instability of the future of American Muslims and how we can promote positive change, or examine why the Cow did indeed jump over the moon; feel free to shoot me an email anytime. Inshallah I will respond within 24 hours.

Jazaks.

Zamin

zamin@muslimtees.com

Discontinuing Shirts

Assalaamu Alaikum,

Alas, it has come time to depart with some of our designs to make room for the new ones we have cooking in the Style Lab. We’re interested in what shirts you think we should effectively kill, for a lack of a better word.

What designs or shirts would YOU remove from the MT lineup and why? You can choose as many shirts as you think should go. We will weigh your input in when making our decision. Comment wisely.

Salaam.Z.

Love Everyone Everyday Sale

Assalaamu Alaikum

Here is the nitty gritty:

Love Everyone Everyday Sale*
Feb 14-21
10% Off Everything, use coupon VCODE10 at checkout!
Free Shipping For All
*While supplies last, if we are out then the discount will not be applied to future sales. You will be notified if any shirts run out before your order is charged. Thanks!

On the team some of us are against celebrating Valentines Day and some are more accepting of it. We’re not fiqhis, scholars, or educated persons fit to give an opinion on the matter. We do have the ability to hold sales for MuslimTees! So buy a few shirts, one for yourself and a some for your loved ones. Why? Not because you love them for Valentines Day but because you love them for the sake of Allah everyday.

Let us know what you think! Love the idea, hate the idea, we only become stronger with your help.

Enjoy!

Salaam. Z.

Official MT Slogan

Assalaamu alaikum,

When we first started we had a running slogan contest. We got some really interesting slogans but not one right one, if you know what I mean.  Without further delay, here is the proposed slogan:

Wear What’s Within

What do you think? What do you like and, just as importantly, what do you dislike about the slogan?

JAK!

Salaam.Z.

Zoinks! New website, what were they thinking!

AA,

That’s right ya’ll, MT is growing up! New website, new logo, new designs. . . ok well the new designs are in development inshaAllah.

Let me begin by saying that “design is a journey, not a destination.” Alhemdulilah, a lot of people loved the old website, rest assured that we did too. But the face-lift was necessary from a technical point of view: we had too much flash, pages were not linked to a single template, there were inconsistencies in text and page layouts. . . so on and so forth. It served us well and give it our heartfelt salaams!

This is just the beginning of a new phase in MT’s history. We like to call it the Phoenix Quarter because we rising out of some ashes from the last six months. We back. We bad. And we love Lupe Fiasco. Ok, that last part was not necessary but it is very true.

We kept the spirit of the old website for the most part, there is one area that is very different from the old part. That is the product page. Yep, this thing is totally different. You asked for more, larger, easier to access pictures and that is what we gave you.

What do you think? We would love to hear your thoughts on three questions:

What do you like/dislike?
Why do you like/dislike it?
How can we improve it?

Let us have it!

Salaam.Z.

MTBT: Motivating the motivators.

Salaam,

In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the king declares, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

If Shakespeare was alive today he might have quoted the old leadership adage, “It is lonely on top” and however you want to say it for the most part it holds true. Regardless of the situation as a leader it is your obligation to provide direction to your peers and keep cool when things get hot.

MuslimTees has been a unique experiment in leadership. In the beginning, the three founders did not define an organizational structure. We would just be three guys, all doing work that needed to be done. That did not work out. At all. A business, an organization needs a leader.

In the end I was elected as the ameer, or leader, of the group. Which is not automatically a good thing as might be perceived. It comes with a lot of responsibility. I am held accountable by Allah for how I treat my followers, provide questions to answers that I have no experience in, and so forth. At the end of the day the responsibilities that people think you have are only the iceberg of you worries.

From a business point of view, a leader is responsible for success or failure. MuslimTees has recently had some tough times too. We had a messy transfer of duties which I hold myself to blame for bad planning. It was a tough fall and early winter, the team felt demoralized and any progress was effectively halted. To reiterate, it was tough.

As an individual I felt just as bad as the rest of the team but as a leader I had to put on a face of confidence and make people believe in a plan that I was not sure would work. After shelling out some vitamin ‘b-lieve’ I realized I could go for a boost myself. I wondered to myself, “who motivates the motivators?”

There are many ways to find motivation as a leader. The easiest one is to have a peer motivators. Who can serve as that person? Well, other motivators who have roles that are parallel to yourself. Are you an MSA president? Why not find another MSA president in another school? Grab a coffee once a month and shoot the breeze. I am fortunate enough to be friends with PhatwaFactory’s founder Obaida Abdul-rahim (if you have not heard of PhatwaFactory you need to go there and buy some of his hot shirts), he has always been a great person to bounce ideas off of and willing to listen to my complaints, may Allah increase his rizq in this life and the hereafter.

I’m going to try to make this as least cliche as possible. . .but the biggest motivator for me was Allah. The weird thing is was that asking Allah for patience and guidance was not my first idea rather it was one of my last. It is ironic since I was doing stuff for MuslimTees which one would thing would help me remember Islam, especially considering we have the Islam-Africa shirt.

When reflecting about it, I found the same to be true about my work in MSA (Muslim Student Association) or other Islamic work. I might be weird, correction I am weird, even so I think that many leaders ‘resort’ to asking Allah for support as a last means rather as it being the first step of tackling a problem. The next time I need a boost I’ll start with Allah and then everything else.

What do you do when you need a boost? Share your strategies.

Salaam.Z

MuslimTees Business Talk is an ongoing blog series providing practical business lessons, occasionally from a Muslim perspective.

Simplicity (or lack thereof)

Salamos -

Yep, we’re still here! After a little re-vamping, which we are still in the process of, expect a lot of new things, inshaAllah, that will make your MT experience much more greater.

Winter break is over or almost over for most of us people who are getting an edumication – mine was filled with a conference in Chicago, which was successful alhamdulillah (shout outs to all the cool people I met from all over America!), lots of family time, Eid, and some parties and friends here and there. I’m actually glad to get back into the cycle of things because I have a lot of cool classes this semester I’ve been looking forward to. (Did I ever mention how fun it was to be a Fine Arts major? very fun, thank God )

On a random note, everyone make du’aa for this situation of Global Warming because it affects you, even if you don’t care. This morning I woke up and all the snow was just…gone. It feels lovely, as if it was spring, but it really isn’t spring…so don’t just make du’aa, try to reduce your use of fossil fuels, and do your best to re-use and recycle… it’s not impossible, really.

Simplicity – It may be an oxymoron for this blog post, because I just wrote two paragraphs NOT about simplicity.

Often, marketers and entrepreneurs find it hard to simply describe or explain a product or service they provide – but why? Dan and Chip Heath, authers of “Made to Stick” say that it’s because of something marketers and entrepreneurs commonly share: a “curse of knowledge”. They’ve been developing and building their product for a long time that they know too much about it and have too much to say – they try to provide the whole picture, which makes a lot of sense to them – and they aren’t focusing on one core message that will make their idea “stick”.

In art, some of the greatest artwork can be ruined when the composition of the piece shows too much, and shows such a huge picture that it becomes background noise. You need to learn how to focus on an unusual element, or a smaller element that when magnified, shows a different perspective. Same goes with marketing. I’ve had this problem in both art and marketing – my professor once told me that sometimes you have to close your eyes and just cut things out, to remove distracting objects and to just not be afraid to zoom in. It’s hard at first but practice makes perfect.

But how do you know if your message is sticky or unsticky, or if your composition is not working? Chip Heath says that you should always ask the boss. Dan Heath adds that if competitors think your message applies to them as well, it doesn’t work. To think in a more abstract way, one thing I noticed about my art work was that it looked alot different on the wall of the class studio than it did on my kitchen table. I started to tape my art work to the walls all over the house and standing far away. Same with the message – if you can imagine your message next to the message of your competitor, does it stand out? If it doesn’t, how can you be distinguished, and be differentiated from your competitor?

That was something I’ve been mulling over lately, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

wasalams

-nora

Update. We’re still here.

Salaam, 

First my apologies for our drought of posts. We’ve all been super busy, here in Arabia we welcomed the arrival of my new baby sister Sara! Only 23 years apart from her older brother, yours truly. Hopefully this is the last one…but that’s my brothers and I said when our first sister was born 5 years ago. Khair, inshaAllah she’s loads of barakah (blessings) for her parents and of course big brother.

Enough about me. Let’s get to MT.

Right now we are in the middle of redesigning our website. I know, you are probably asking yourself, “How can they get any better?!” Ok…may be it is more like “it is about time they updated this thing!”

Here is what can you look forward to in the new website:

• Consistency in colors and fonts
• Product pages that have rollover images (no more numbers!)
• Finished pages (About Us, Participate)
• New Pages (Press, Design voting – by summer inshaAllah)
• Updated policies
• Mayyyyybe, maybe a new logo
• Kewl (not cool) new images and hawt new designs
• From the back end, standardized templates and CSS for quick updates/changes
• More?

Basically the new website will reflect an older and more mature MT. The past six months have been tough for us with delays and a rocky (at best) transition for various reasons. I can not apologize enough to those who expired drawn out delays. I feel that we have turned a new corner in the evolving history that is MuslimTees.com. I am sure we will hit more bumps along the road in this journey but I am just as confident that we can roll with the punches.

Keep your eyes out for the new website sometime around the middle of January. When it is live tell us what you like and dislike.

Salaam. Z.