Moustapha Camara

By Coty Gonzales

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of T-Shirt Magazine, I interview Moustapha Camara, editor and co-founder of T-Shirt Magazine.

CG: Moustapha, it’s been a year since T-Shirt Magazine released its first issue. Tell us a little bit about how the idea for T-Shirt Magazine came about?

MC: The idea of T-Shirt Magazine came about when me and my bro AJ (also co-founder) were trying to come up with a hip hop blog, based on some hip hop tees we were selling through Cafepress. But we wanted to talk about other t-shirt brands, too, so then we decided maybe we should create a hip hop/urban t-shirt blog. After another planning session of this idea for a new site, we decided, “hey, why don’t we just have a t-shirt blog?”. Since we started out on our entrepreneurial journey by selling t-shirts online, it made sense create a site about t-shirts. We knew there were several t-shirt blogs out there and had to think of a way to make our’s different, so we chose the magazine format for this new site, and decided to name the site, T-Shirt Magazine.

CG: What were some of the goals that you had for T-Shirt Magazine when you first started a year ago? Do you think you’ve reached those goals?

MC: Some goals that we set for T-Shirt Magazine that we have reached are: holding a contest sponsored by a well known t-shirt brand (Threadless), getting over 1,000 daily visitors in a month, running T-Shirt Magazine for over a year and meeting t-shirt brand owners (that we’ve featured) in person. Some goals that we haven’t reached yet are holding the first annual “T-Shirt Olympics” in New York City and exhibiting at an event.

CG: Describe a little bit about how much effort goes into making each issue of T-Shirt Magazine. Is it a mad rush by the writers of T-Shirt Magazine to meet deadlines?

MC: First, we list what articles will be in the next 10 issues of T-Shirt Magazine. This list of articles is more of an outline of what articles will be included, since it can be challenging to feature certain people who we wanted to feature for a specific issue. We normally expect our writers to have articles done for the issue in the beginning of the week that the issue will be coming out, but we’re working towards having articles completed several weeks in advance in order to insure that our articles are higher quality.

CG: What were some of the major trends that you noticed in the indie tee culture this past year? What do you think will be hot this year in terms of t-shirt design?

MC: I’ve noticed a lot of “copy cat” t-shirts in the t-shirt industry, I’ll tell you that. It’s okay to base your design off of someone else’s design, but copying is just a no-no. I’ve seen so many tees that say “more cowbell” and “tase me bro” with the EXACT SAME design. I know those are popular catch phrases, but people need to be more original with their designs. Some other major trends have been skull head designs, the “Kanye shutter shades” on a character in a tee design, and the mayhem of political campaign t-shirts (especially the millions of Obama tees). It’s kinda hard to tell what will be hot this year in terms of t-shirt design, but I know new Obama t-shirts will still keep rolling in (positive and negative ones).

CG: T-Shirt Magazine has undergone a major facelift. Tell us a little bit about the changes and what’s new. What do you like most about the new site?

MC: With the new site, I like the fact that when your finished reading an article, you can see a list of similar articles and a list of more articles in that particular issue. This makes it easier for readers to find more of the type of articles that they like and read all articles an issue. With the new site, you can also view the back issues in an easier way and see the what articles are getting the most views.

CG:  As an editor of T-Shirt Magazine, I’m interested to know what magazine you read when you’re not working on T-Shirt Magazine?

MC: As far as online magazine’s go, I like reading Format Magazine and Ask Men. For print magazine’s, I like reading Entrepreneur, Forbes, XXL, Vibe, and sometimes, I read Seventeen Magazine (yeh, I said it!). Sometimes I would read these magazines just to read them, but I would study the structure of the content and get ideas for T-Shirt Magazine.

CG: So, where does T-Shirt Magazine go from here? What can we expect from T-Shirt Magazine in the upcoming year?

MC: This year will be a bigger year for T-Shirt Magazine. We’re expecting to hold more t-shirt contests with interesting concepts, interview more high profile t-shirt brands while still interviewing the upcoming t-shirt designers, and more reader interactivity. We also plan on having more people involved in each issue to make them the best that they can be. So, stay tuned.

For more info, check out T-Shirt Ma…syke! You’re already on the site. Just continue to browse around for more t-shirt madness!

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