Uniqlo X Pokemon
Project
A creative exploration combining brand identity, fan culture, and wearable design
Year
2018
In 2018, Uniqlo invited designers to participate in a limited-edition T-shirt design competition for Pokémon, a globally beloved brand. The challenge: design wearable illustrations that felt authentic to Pokémon fans while aligning with Uniqlo’s minimal, everyday-wear sensibility.
As the designer, my task was to create one or more T-shirt concepts that balanced character recognizability, graphic simplicity, and wearable aesthetics — resulting in designs that could appeal to both fans and casual wearers.
Challenge / Design Goals
Balance fandom and wearability — The design must reference Pokémon (character, mood) without becoming a “costume.” The T-shirt should feel like a natural part of someone’s daily wardrobe.
Simplicity & clarity — Because the print will exist on fabric, the design needed to be clean, scalable, and easy to recognize from a distance.
Brand cohesion — The style should harmonize with Uniqlo’s brand identity (simple, minimal, high-quality basics), not overshadow it.
Multiple formats & variations — Provide variants (colors, layout, print-position) to suit different tastes and printing constraints.
Concept & Design Strategy
Graphic Style: I adopted a clean, bold, silhouette-driven illustration style. The artwork emphasizes strong contrast, minimal detail, and instantly recognizable character elements — making it wearable and visually striking.
Color & Composition: Used limited-color palettes and clear negative space so designs remain readable on a T-shirt. Alternative colorways ensure flexibility for different fabric colors.
Mock-up Testing: Created multiple mock-ups to simulate real-world wear — front-view, folded-view, and variation in shirt color — to evaluate how the design reads in different contexts.
Wearer-first Thinking: Considered how the T-shirt would look when worn casually, folded, or hanging — ensuring comfort, graphic clarity, and subtlety (not overt costume-like).
