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Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo is teaming up with Nintendo once again, choosing Pokémon as theme of its annual T-shirt design contest. Pokémon Company president Tsunekazu Ishihara, Pokémon game designer Ken Sugimori and Japanese fashion designer Nigo will judge the designs.
From now until Dec. 8, artists can submit Pokémon T-shirt designs for a chance to win big. The grand prize winner receives $10,000; second place gets $2000; and third gets $1000. All three will be invited to an award ceremony in Japan, and to the 2019 Pokémon World Championships in Washington, D.C. The winning designs will be released in summer 2019.
Any of the 806 existing Pokémon are fair game for designs, which means some less popular ones could possibly finally get their chance in the spotlight. Or the winning designs might be more Pikachu and Eevee. Either way — more Pokémon apparel!
Unfortunately, if a design wins there will be no further royalties, and the design will belong to the Pokémon Company.
Uniqlo’s previous design contest themes included Marvel heroes and Nintendo characters. For further contest information, check out Uniqlo’s Q&A. For further Pokémon content, check out Uniqlo’s masterlist of Pokémon, which has no further info other than our beloved ‘mons smiling faces. But isn’t that enough?
