Choosing team colours means picking a combination that a player can be identified in from the sideline, that reads clearly against an opposing team’s kit, and that becomes the colour people associate with your club off the field as well as on it. For a new club starting from a blank page, or an established club weighing up a rebrand, the decision is worth more thought than “what looks good in the clubroom.”
Why Colour Choice Is More Than a Look
On the field, colour is a functional signal before it’s a design choice. Teammates need to identify each other at a sprint, officials need to separate the two sides at a glance, and spectators need to follow the game from a stand or a sideline metres away. A kit that looks sharp on a hanger but reads as a grey blur from thirty metres away, or that sits too close to a regular opponent’s colours, creates a problem every single match rather than a one-off styling mistake. The comparison in our rugby league vs rugby union uniforms guide is a good example of how much a code’s on-field conventions, not just its history, shape what a kit needs to do.
Contrast: Making Numbers, Names and Sponsor Logos Legible at Distance
Legibility at distance comes down to contrast between the garment colour and whatever sits on top of it: numbers, names and sponsor logos. A dark number on a dark body, or a pale number on a pale body, might look clean in a product photo and still be unreadable from the far side of a ground. As a starting point, pair a strongly contrasting colour for numbers against the base garment rather than a tonal match, and keep sponsor logos to colours that hold their own contrast against the body colour rather than blending into it.
| Garment Colour | Recommended Number/Text Colour | Contrast Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Navy | White or gold | High contrast in both cases; gold reads as more premium for finals or representative kit. |
| Red | White | Avoid black numbers on red — contrast drops sharply under floodlights. |
| White or light grey | Navy or black | Keep sponsor logos in solid colour blocks; thin coloured outlines disappear at distance. |
| Black | White or gold | Avoid dark green or dark red numbers on black — low contrast and a common colour-blindness clash. |
| Sky blue | Navy or white | Avoid red accents alongside sky blue for the same reason as green/red pairings below. |
| Green | White or gold | Green/red combinations (garment vs opposition or trim) are the most common colour-vision clash — see below. |
Colour Blindness and Kit Clashes Between Opposing Teams
Roughly one in twelve men has some form of colour vision deficiency, most commonly red–green, which makes certain kit combinations genuinely hard to distinguish rather than just a matter of taste. Colour Blind Awareness sets out which combinations cause the most trouble on a sports field, red against green chief among them, along with practical alternatives that keep a club’s identity while avoiding a clash for a meaningful share of players and spectators. World Rugby has gone a step further and published official guidance on selecting team kit colours for exactly this reason, recommending clubs check new kit designs against common forms of colour vision deficiency before committing to a print run. It’s a five-minute check worth doing before an order goes to production, not after.
Popular Colourway Approaches: New Clubs vs Rebrands
A brand-new club is choosing an identity from nothing, which is its own kind of freedom: check what nearby clubs in your competition already wear before locking in a primary colour, since a near-identical kit to a regular opponent causes the exact legibility problem this guide opened with. An established club considering a rebrand is solving a different problem: how much to change without losing the colours long-time members and sponsors already associate with the club. A common middle path is keeping the primary colour and updating the accent colour, trim or pattern, which refreshes the kit without asking supporters to adopt an entirely new identity. Either way, the same colour decisions extend past the playing kit into committee and volunteer wear; our corporate identity guide covers carrying a consistent colour and branding approach into polos and off-field apparel once the on-field colours are locked in.
Two-Tone and Accent Colours Across Garment Types
A two-tone or accent-colour approach doesn’t behave the same way on every garment. On a jersey, a contrasting side panel or sleeve can carry an accent colour without competing with the number on the chest and back. On shorts, an accent colour usually works best as a single stripe or panel rather than a full second colour, which keeps the kit reading as one outfit rather than two mismatched pieces. Socks are the easiest place to introduce an accent colour with no legibility trade-off at all, since nothing needs to be read off them from a distance. Training wear and travel apparel can take more liberties with accent colours than match-day kit, since they don’t need to pass the same at-a-glance identification test during play. Our custom sportswear range covers how the same colour palette can be carried consistently across jerseys, shorts, socks and training wear once you’ve settled on it.
Design Your Kit Colours
Getting team colours right means balancing on-field legibility, colour-vision accessibility and the identity your club wants to be known by. Once you’ve settled on a direction, design your kit colours with us and we’ll help you carry it consistently across every garment your club needs.