The UT Grand Prix is a design competition that’s held every year to showcase designers and artists when given a specific theme to work on. This has ranged from Disney, to Star Wars, to Marvel comics, and to Nintendo. And with the announcement of Pokemon: Sword and Shield, it only made sense to do another crossover with Nintendo. However, instead of just making a t-shirt that would go up for sale, the competition would also allow the winner to have their design showcased as a customized shirt in the upcoming Switch game as well.
Over 18,000 people submitted their designs to the competition, which is a new record for competitors in the UTGP. Of these people, over 40 countries were represented. And of course, it was all narrowed down to one winner. The Gyarados and Magikarp totem design done by Li Wen Pei:
The image shows what the t-shirt would look like in game on the characters from the promo images when the game was first announced. The idea that outfits will be customizable in the new titles are also teased here with the concept of the winner’s shirt being in the game. Well, the goal was to have the design winner’s shirt in the game. But something came up.
In the rules of the UTGP competition, it states that the design being entered must have been made specifically for the competition. Li Wen Pei’s design did not adhere to this rule, so sadly, their design was disqualified from the competition, leaving it with no Grand Prize winner. This lead to the issue of adding a new Grand Prize winner, however Uniqlo and Nintendo both decided against having a new winner. So there will be no UTGP t-shirt within the upcoming titles.
Even with no UTGP design in-game, Pokemon: Sword and Shield is still set to come out in 2019. For the rest of the competition winners, check out their designs on the Uniqlo UTGP2019 page here.