Japanese company Uniqlo hosted a T-shirt competition recently and earlier this week they announced the winner. This year the UT Grand Prix theme was Pokemon, and Chinese artist Li Wen Pei had won the $10,000 grand prize and gotten his design featured in Pokemon Sword and Shield, which are set to be released on the Nintendo Switch later this year.
On May 22, 2019, Uniqlo announced it has disqualified its Grand Prize winner, along with another finalist, after learning that the designs submitted were not in accordance with the terms of the competition. You would think Uniqlo would go with a runner up, but the company said in a statement that “Uniqlo will not award the Grand Prize to another entrant or sell merchandise featuring the designs.”
Unfortunately, Wen Pei used his entry design previously for commercial purposes by having the design on phone cases. One of Uniqlo’s rules is that all designs submitted haven’t been published before. This hasn’t been confirmed by Uniqlo that this was the exact reason for disqualification, but we know that Wen Pei’s t-shirt design is no longer featured on the website, along with the 2nd and 3rd place winners.
Hopefully, Uniqlo will pick another winner for the competition, but it doesn’t seem likely after they said they won’t award another entrant the grand prize. With E3 coming up in a couple of weeks we’re looking forward to hearing more about Pokemon Sword and Shield. If Uniqlo decides to move forward with another winner for their contest, then we look forward to seeing their winning design within the game.
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