Colour · 4 min read
The navy you approved and the navy in the photograph
Colour, light and expectation
It happens most often with navy, and after that with maroon. A program approves a colour on a mockup, the kit arrives correct, and the first set of match photographs shows something that reads as almost-black or almost-purple. Nobody has done anything wrong, and the explanation is worth knowing before you approve rather than after.
Four different things are happening
The first is your screen. A phone at full brightness in a bright room shows a navy considerably lighter than the same file on a laptop at half brightness, and neither is wrong — they are two devices with two calibrations showing one file.
The second is dye on fabric. Colour on a screen is light emitted; colour on a jersey is light reflected off a textured surface. A mesh knit reflects less than a smooth interlock, so the same dye reference reads darker on mesh, which is one reason we show a mockup on the fabric you have actually chosen.
The third is the venue. Sodium and LED floodlights have very different colour temperatures, and both shift how a mid-tone reads. A kit approved under office lighting and worn under an old sodium array is genuinely a different colour to the eye.
The fourth is the camera. Phone cameras adjust white balance automatically against whatever dominates the frame, and on a green field that means everything else gets pushed slightly. This is why the same jersey looks different in two photographs taken minutes apart.
What actually helps
Give a Pantone reference
It is the only description of a colour that means the same thing to everybody. A hex code is a distant second best and a screenshot is not a colour reference at all.
Ask for a swatch
Physical fabric in your hand settles arguments that no amount of on-screen proofing can. It is the cheapest step in the whole process.
Decide against the real background
Hold the swatch against the court or field surface the kit will be worn on, not against a desk.
Look at an existing garment
If a school already has kit in the colour, send us that garment rather than a description of it.
The one case where something did go wrong
If two pieces of the same set disagree with each other — a top and a bottom that are visibly different shades of the same colour under the same light — that is not perception, that is production, and it usually means the pieces came from separate runs. It is the specific failure that ordering a set as a set is meant to prevent, and the reasoning behind our approach to uniform sets produced in a single run is entirely about avoiding it.
Tell us if you see it. A set that does not match itself is our problem to fix, and it is a completely different conversation from a colour that looks different under floodlights.
What each colour reference is actually worth
The four ways programs describe a colour to us, ranked by how much of the original survives.
| Reference | What survives | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Pantone number | Everything. It is a physical standard, not a description of one. | Nothing — the school almost always has it in a brand guide. |
| A physical garment | Almost everything, allowing for how faded the sample already is. | A padded envelope. |
| Hex or CMYK value | The hue. Not the depth on a textured knit, which is the part people argue about. | Nothing, but expect the delivered colour to sit slightly darker than the screen. |
| A screenshot or photo | Very little. It has already passed through a camera, a screen and a compression pass. | A reprint, if nobody catches it before production. |
Why navy and maroon specifically
Every colour shifts a little between screen and fabric. Two shift enough to cause arguments, and they are the two most common colours in team sport.
Navy sits close to the point where a camera stops distinguishing a dark blue from black. There is not much tonal room left below it, so any darkening — a textured knit, a dim venue, an automatic exposure that pulls the frame down — pushes it over the line. The kit is correct and the photograph reads black.
Maroon has the opposite problem. It sits between red and purple, and white balance decides which side it lands on. A camera correcting for green grass shifts everything else toward magenta, which is exactly the direction maroon cannot afford to move. The same jersey then photographs purple outdoors and correct indoors.
Neither is a manufacturing fault and neither is fixable after production, which is why we would rather have the argument at swatch stage. The mechanics of getting a colour onto fabric in the first place are set out in how sublimation puts colour into fibre.
Quick answers
Can you guarantee an exact Pantone match?
Within the tolerance of the fabric, yes. Across two different fabrics — a jersey knit and a heavy fleece, say — an exact match is not something any manufacturer can honestly promise, so we match both to the same reference and show them together.
Is a screen mockup worth anything then?
For layout, proportion and design, absolutely. For final colour approval on a shade that matters, ask for a swatch as well.
Is a hex code good enough to approve a colour?
It fixes the hue and nothing else. It cannot describe how deep the colour reads on a textured knit, which is the part that causes arguments. Use it if a Pantone genuinely does not exist, and expect the fabric to sit slightly darker than the screen.
Can you match a colour from a photograph of our old kit?
We can get close, and close is the honest word. A photograph has already been through a camera sensor, a white balance decision, a screen and a compression pass. Post us the old garment instead — it costs an envelope and removes the guesswork entirely.
Why does the same jersey look different in two photos from the same match?
Automatic white balance. The camera corrects against whatever dominates the frame, so a wide shot full of green field and a close-up full of skin tone produce two different corrections of the same garment.
Do fabric type and colour interact?
Strongly. Mesh reflects less light than a smooth interlock, so an identical dye reference reads darker on mesh. This is why a mockup should be shown on the fabric you have actually chosen rather than a generic flat render.
Will a swatch really settle it?
In our experience it settles almost every colour disagreement, because it removes every screen from the process. It is the cheapest step available and the one most often skipped under time pressure.
Does sublimated colour fade over a season?
Not the way surface decoration does, because the colour is inside the fibre rather than sitting on it. What ages is the fabric around it, which reads as a softening rather than a fade.
What if the top and shorts do not match each other?
That is not perception, that is production, and it usually means the pieces came from separate runs. Tell us — a set that disagrees with itself is our problem to fix and a different conversation entirely from floodlight colour.
How early should the colour be settled?
Before artwork, not during it. A colour changed after a proof is approved restarts the approval, and a colour changed after production is a reprint. It is the first decision and the cheapest one to get right.