I think this artwork optimises for aesthetics over usability.
Both sets are aesthetically pleasing and usable, just to different degrees.
I think that’s ok? I’ve seen many chess sets whose primary function was aesthetic rather than to be played.
The thing with aesthetics is that it’s highly subjective.
The concept is great, the board is absolutely beautiful, and, at first glance, the curve is aesthetically pleasing while not getting in the way of reading the board. Texture as the "colour" works great. The figures, though, just look like they ran out of steam, it's like the "horse drawing" meme. They're not evocative of chess pieces, they're not particularly evocative of sand structures either. They're just... there. They're pretty enough, I guess, but in a generic way.
When you add to that that the photos have an impossible pawn formation, it kind of screams of "I don't actually care about the subject of my art piece".
Older chess sets like the Lewis Chessmen from the 1200s look substantially different, having both better aesthetics and usability than the currently popular set. Like having a bishop that is recognizable as a bishop, not a medium-height round thing with a notch in the top.
If you don't want to imitate the standard chess set, improving on it isn't that difficult as long as you don't care about mass production from wood. This set somehow manages to be worse
If you are a chess player, you are thinking strategy and tactics, and the pieces (at best) blend into the mental background, and (at worst) are a distraction from the game.
Which leaves custom sets to the realm of the collector and the enthusiast, people who like to have and think about, but not so much to do.
But I'm let down because my chess partner is a 9 year old who is still learning basic strategies.
Oh yeah. That's a reasonable tradeoff.
Just aziaziazi's comment made it sound like the only aspect where distinguisability matters is the colour. So I pointed out that I don't have a problem telling the sides apart, while have more of a problem distinguishing the piece's type.
But as you say this is a decorative chess set, and in that regard I think it is a very sucesfull one.