How to use the SWAZ custom football kit designer
A football kit plays a pivotal role in the success of a club and has since the early days of the beautiful game. It’s how you grab people’s attention and build a fanbase. But, it’s not just about the visuals; it’s also about keeping the club’s bank account afloat.
The football kit serves as a canvas for selling sponsorship placements for grassroots and professional clubs alike, and an opportunity to generate revenue through shirt sales to fans. Therefore, you want to have the right tools available to create the perfect kit for you.
We believe in the power of choice, and the SWAZ custom football kit designer has distinguished itself as a premier creative tool on a global scale.
Through years of careful updates, our technology has evolved into a super smooth platform for effortlessly creating custom items. A few years ago, a viral Twitter campaign put its skills to the test.
The internet went wild, using it to whip up football shirt designs that looked just like the branding of some top supermarket chains – it was both fun and demonstrative of the creative power of our platform.
A step-by-step guide to get the most out of our custom football kit designer.
To enhance your experience, we’ve created a video explaining the key features of our designer tool, so you can maximize its potential when working on your dream football kit. Simply hit the play button or refer to our step-by-step guide below for further details.
Step one: Choosing your template.
We’ve created hundreds of templates for you to use as a starting point for your design. From simple, more traditional concepts, that have dotted patterns or diagonal strips, to abstract layouts that flood the material with unique elements.
Even if you are halfway through a design, you can always return to this screen and choose another template to work on if you change your mind. Any colours already picked, or artwork added to the garment, will remain on the next design template for you to work on.
Top tip: You can quickly find the catalogue of templates you’re interested in by using the category selector featured on the filter bar.
Step two: Selecting your colours.
The first, and probably the most important, part of the building process is choosing the colours you want to feature on your kit design.
We have over 100 colour options already available on our custom football kit designer, but if you do need an exact colour match for your brand, please include the HEX or RGB codes in the notes when you purchase. If we can, we will align them before the production process begins.
Top tip: Our custom football kit designer uses a 360-rotation tool so you can easily spin the kit around on the screen. Enjoy inspecting how it looks from all angles.
Step three: Logos and sponsors.
We provide multiple ways to seamlessly incorporate sponsor artwork and club logos into your kit, allowing you to effortlessly adjust their placement on the garment until it suits your vision. Just hit the + button to add more artwork to a specific spot, and once it’s on the garment, easily position it where you want. No constraints on the number of sponsors, logos, or artwork you can upload.
Additionally, you can choose different positions for the SWAZ logo and tweak its colour using the tile picker on the left. This flexibility in showcasing partners distinguishes custom football kits, particularly benefiting grassroots clubs in securing kit funding by demonstrating a serious commitment to advertising.
Top tip: Enhance uniqueness by adding a ‘ghost image’ on the side – a subtly faded graphic, often used by clubs to highlight an enlarged version of their club badge.
Step four: Names and numbers.
It’s the little things that really count, and when you toss in a shirt with a player’s name and number on it, that might just be the clincher for getting them on board. You’ve got the freedom to play around with colours for your name and numbers, even tweak the border at this stage.
Plus, we’re not holding back on font choices – there’s a bunch to pick from. Is your heart set on a specific font we don’t have? No problem, just give us a shout, and we’ll do our best to hook you up. Just hit the plus button and start adding your text and numbers. You can also have multiple pieces of written content and numbers on your garment.
Top tip: This page serves as a sneak peek, giving you a glimpse of how your name and number will look on the garment. As you move further along in the building process, you’ll get the chance to drop in all the specific details for each player you’re buying a kit for.
Step five: Finalising your kit.
To wrap up the kit-building journey, it’s time to punch in all the player names, numbers, and sizes into the player box, getting everything set for your purchase. Remember, sizes are a must at this stage before you can add your whole kit order to the cart. Once you’ve completed the details of one player, hit the ‘Add Player’ button to add another garment.
Here’s a cool feature to keep in mind: hit ‘Save,’ and your kit lands in your personal SWAZ account. Just make sure you’re registered or logged in for this to work. Once saved, your designs are all right here, and easy to access. We will never delete or discontinue your design from your account.
Top tip: Our pricing system is dynamic. That means the more gear you grab, the friendlier the prices get for each piece. Check out our pricing table here for all the details.
Crafting the perfect football kit is more than just a design process; it’s an opportunity to shape the identity of your club. With the SWAZ custom football kit designer, we offer a global platform that champions creativity and choice.
Stand out from the competition
From selecting templates and colours to adding logos, sponsors, names, and numbers, our step-by-step guide to using our custom football kit designer ensures a seamless journey. Hit ‘Save’ to keep your designs safe, and remember, the more you order, the better the deal.
If you have any questions, reach out to our team who will be on hand to help.
The new range of SWAZ custom football kit designs
The football season came to a close last month, with drama, title fights, and relegation battles, from the Premier League to non-league football. Firstly, we’d like to congratulate all the football clubs we work with here at SWAZ. Whether you won the league or finished below where you would have hoped, we’re sure you’ll come back stronger next season.
With players, coaches, and fans, looking forward to (or dreading) a brief break from the game – we have a range of exciting new custom football kit designs to get you excited for the season to come. Our resident design team were on hand to offer insight and take you through the inspiration behind each piece.
But before we get into that, we’d like to remind you that these designs are six of many that you can choose from when using our versatile football kit designer, which gives you complete creative control to design your own football kit, exactly how you like it.
Our latest custom football kit designs
From the popularity of old school striped kits returning to the surge in football clubs choosing custom made football kit designs over off the shelf options, there has been a lot of creativity on display. Let us take you through each design below and showcase the creative process and thought that went into them.
01. The Zipper Design
With clever use of colour, the dotted design elements in this template pop and come to life. Likewise, if you use slightly darker tones, the kit can carry an edgier look. Whatever you’re looking to produce, the beauty about the dotted design is the capability for the football kit to be versatile.
The increased popularity of dotted design kits is something we’ve come to notice over the years. Clubs love the way it stylistically showcases their colours. The way the dots are presented in our zipped template offers a subtle presentation of variable branding, which customers love.
This design template is one of our latest design wireframes you can use to design your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your bespoke football kit today.
02. The Europa Design
We’d all like a bit of European flair in our team, a master creator who can pull the strings and produce magic moments out of nowhere. For those teams that can’t find a player of that ilk, we have a football kit design that can do that job for you instead.
The Europa template includes a spiral series of stripes running up the right-hand side of the kit to give you a two-tone option. Mix your club’s colours and see how they look, we’re sure you’ll love them.
We careful curate all our design template so you have plenty of choice when designing your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your personalised football kit today.
03. The Eclair Design
Proven to be a lucky design for Frank Lampard’s Everton, who avoided relegation with an impressive win over Crystal Palace on the penultimate game of the season, our design team took inspiration from their third kit to produce this intricate piece.
They flipped the direction of the triangles on their head to create a more positive feel and included interchangeable colour options for football clubs to implement their branding.
This design template is one of our latest design wireframes you can use to design your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your bespoke football kit today.
04. The Great Dane
This retro design looks like it’s been plucked from a 90’s dancefloor and splashed onto the front of a football kit. In some ways, it has, as a similar design was famously worn by the great man himself, Peter Schmeichel, during Euro 92 when playing for the Denmark national team.
The fluorescent colours on the front are set as part of the kit, with the option to change the sleeves, chest, back, and collar, colours. If anything, this kit would cause a distraction to any striker breaking through on goal.
We careful curate all our design template so you have plenty of choice when designing your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your personalised football kit today.
05. The Iceman Design
Often overlooked for their importance to the team, Goalkeepers have the most responsibility on the pitch, therefore the kit they sport when crossing the white line should be as well thought out and considered as the outfielders.
Given only one player wears a Goalkeeper’s kit on the pitch, we’ve often found that football clubs have a bit more freedom when designing it, and are willing to go for a slightly more eccentric look. That is what the iceman design offers, with a detailed coloured pattern down both sides of the kit.
This design template is one of our latest design wireframes you can use to design your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your bespoke football kit today.
06. The Lion Shirt
The final piece in our 2022/23 new range of kit designs collection is the Lion. A perfect gradient of colour from top to bottom gives this kit design a uniquely beautiful flow.
A club can add its primary, secondary and even a third colour to the kit and have them all working together harmoniously. Football clubs can display their full range of branding and identity with this kit design and can look forward to a successful campaign to come.
We careful curate all our design template so you have plenty of choice when designing your custom football kit using our football kit designer. Hit the image and start designing your personalised football kit today.
From the popularity of old school striped kits returning to the surge in football clubs choosing custom made football kit designs over off the shelf options, there has been a lot of creativity on display. Let us take you through each design below and showcase the creative process and thought that went into them.
The beauty of a bespoke, custom-made football kit by SWAZ
Our 3d football kit designer gives you complete creative control to use these templates, alongside over 60 other design identities, for your football kit next season.
Choose your design, implement your colours, add your club crest, add names and numbers, and add all your sponsor artwork as part of the price. There are no hidden costs and if you have any problems and would like to speak to our in-house designer, please reach out and we will be happy to create a design for you.
Consistency is key
In football, in sport, in life – consistency equals success! It’s the same recipe that works in building a positive run of performances on the pitch, that establishes a successful football club off it.
This formula very much starts with a club’s football kit, as it’s the very thing that creates an identity and style that fans, players and coaches see on the pitch week in week out.
For clubs that have multiple teams up through the ages, in both the female and male game, it’s hard to develop a custom football shirt and kit design that pleases everyone and celebrates a club’s brand at the same time.
With hundreds of players pulling on its football shirt every weekend, big clubs need to work with a supplier that has the time, care and flexibility to create a football kit design that is custom to them. But that’s exactly what we achieved with the Downton Town Football Kit.
A football kit that fits the entire club
When Downton Football Club, based in Wiltshire in the United Kingdom, approached us last year, that was the exact brief, “Create a custom football kit to celebrate and showcase our club’s identity and supply it to all 15 of our teams so we have a consistent look across our club.”
Hitting the brief, time after time
Within two months, we delivered their custom football shirts, shorts and socks, alongside all their teamwear items and so far so good, we’ve had nothing but positive feedback.
The Downton FC football kit has gone down a treat with the players, a dream with the fans and Downton Town are happy customers. We’ve developed them their own club shop, where they can purchase items at the click of a button, and by stocking up on their products in advance, we often deliver them well ahead of schedule.
It’s been a pleasure to work with Downton and we can’t wait for our relationship to continue. Please see a quote from their management team below.
“Having a consistent custom designed football kit for our entire club is vitally important to our identity and all of our teams.
“SWAZ did a fantastic job in producing a look that we loved straight away and the kit quality was fantastic. The players and coaches love the football kit and enjoy wearing it out on the pitch every weekend.
“Our order was turned around all within a quick timeframe and the club shop we have on the SWAZ website makes it super easy for us to buy our products.”
— Downton FC: Rae Hughes – Vice Chairman
It's all in the detail.....
Local football is soon to return, and we can’t wait! Walking out on the pitch for the first time this year is going to be incredible, the smell of the grass, the banter in the changing room, the feeling of battling hard to get the first win.
But one thing that we expect to be front of mind for all the managers, coaches, and chairs out there – is finances. During these uncertain times, football clubs will need to lean on football sponsors and partners more than ever to get the funding they need to pay for football kits and teamwear, officials on matchday and to comfortably field a team week in and week out.
At SWAZ, we know all there is to know about how to present your sponsor’s logo on your football kit in multiple different ways, all within the guidelines set out by the Football Association (FA).
How to present football sponsorship on your kit
Giving your partners the best possible exposure and service for the money invested is the best way to entice them to finance your team in the first place.
Our 3D football kit designer allows you to present sponsors in whatever way you please, but the FA has specific requirements that you need to abide by, and we’ve listed it all out below.
The rules for presenting football sponsors on a kit
On the player’s football kit the following areas shall be permitted to be used for advertising:
- One single area not exceeding 250 square centimetres on the front of the shirt.
- One single area not exceeding 100 square centimetres on the back of the shirt.
- One single area not exceeding 100 square centimetres on each sleeve of the shirt, between the shoulder seam and the elbow
- One single area not exceeding 100 square centimetres on the back of the shorts.
- Once only on each sock tie-up providing it does not exceed an area of 100 square centimetres.
There are plenty of other ways to service your sponsors, and present logos and details your football kit, which it’s our job to know.
The SWAZ team is experts at what we do, and understand every piece of legislation and detail required when producing a football kit to the specification set out by the FA.
Servicing sponsors and partners is essential for football clubs of all shapes and sizes, and at SWAZ we look to partner with the teams we work with.
If there is anything you need help with regarding your sponsors, please reach out and ask, we’ve helped teams with their requirements for the past five years and will be happy to offer our expert opinion.
All information in this article regarding football sponsorship requirements has been pulled from the official Football Association Handbook which you can read in full here.
A touch of class
If there is one good thing that has come out of this pandemic, it’s the incredible performance of the NHS – including the care and courage shown by all of the heroic individuals and teams that work for it.
As a nation, we’ve clapped, we’ve cheered and fundraised to show our support – and a few of the clubs we supply with a SWAZ football kit have gone one step further.
Saltash United, Tavistock Town, Downton United and Goldophin Atlantic, are displaying their respect to the National Health Service by including the NHS logo on the sleeve of their brand new SWAZ bespoke football kits.
The four clubs, in a mark of respect to the true heroes of this country, feature the logo on the sleeve of their shirt, which will be there in plain sight every time the team sport it out on the field of play.
Adding personalisations to bespoke football kits
A truly wonderful touch and tribute that can be produced and added quite simply to a SWAZ kit with our football kit designer, which gives clubs full creative control over the look of their bespoke football kits and the elements that form part of it.
If there is any specific requirements or design elements you want to be added to your unique football kit design, please reach out and let us know.
“When in discussion with SWAZ about the design for our new kit at the start of the 2020/21 season, it just seemed like a no-brainer to have a tribute to the NHS on the shirt.
“As a country, we have been through the most testing of times but while we have simply been asked to ‘stay at home to save lives’ those in the NHS have fought this battle on the front line.
“Some of the scenes we have seen in news reports from the ICU wards have been like something from a Hollywood movie so the NHS symbol on our shirts was just our little way of saying thank you.”
— Saltash United Manager, Dane Bunney
Supermarket football shirts
Let us set the scene, it was just a typical Sunday evening back in late November 2020, and our team was preparing for another week ahead during a second national lockdown in the fight against COVID-19.
The uncertainty around grassroots football made it a gloomy time for us all, and the sporting world was hurting. When out of nowhere, a notification popped up on the company’s phone to say that someone had tagged us in a tweet. Then it went off again, and again, and again…..
The phone didn’t stop buzzing. What was going on? Had someone hacked into our account? Not another problem to face during those uncertain times.
SWAZ Goes Viral
No, a man name Joe Parton had tweeted a funny series of supermarket football shirt designs using our SWAZ football kit designer, using the branding of supermarket chains from around the country as inspiration.
“I don’t know how your Sunday’s gone, but I’ve spent mine making football shirts for every UK Supermarket (a thread),” tweeted Joe Parton.
On further investigation, Joe, a football kit enthusiast and fellow fan of the BBC series ‘The Office’ according to his bio (thumbs up from us), had created a home and away shirt for all of the top supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Morrisons, Co-Op, Iceland, Lidl and Aldi, to name a few.
His inspiration when creating various supermarket football shirt designs came from a quick look in the wardrobe at an old Tesco uniform, from where he used to work. The fun idea took off and people re-tweeted and liked the post, with an incredible amount of comments and further retweets, until the online world visited our website and started getting involved by creating more custom made football kit designs, using our 3D football kit designer tool.
Supermarket Football Shirts at Centre Stage
There were over 44,900 likes, and near 7,000 retweets with a lot of the named supermarkets getting involved and responding to Joe, which led to fast-food chains, car brands and even makers of teabags jumping on the bandwagon.
Within 24 hours of Joe’s first tweet, the thread had been covered by BBC Sport, Joe.co.uk and even Talk Sport, who featured the story on the Paul Hawksbee and Max Rushden show.
An incredible 24 hours to raise the spirits of not only the SWAZ office but by the numbers, put a smile on several thousand faces across the UK and beyond and grasped the attention of some football media royalty.
We wanted to thank Joe, so we decided to make him a couple of the shirts as a gift. Check out the Aldi kit we’ve produced using his design, a showcase of how we can take any design made using our 3D football kit designer and turn it into reality.
ALDI away at the weekend lads….?
Have a scroll down our Twitter feed to check out the thread and use our 3D kit designer to create a few football kit designs yourself.
“I wouldn’t have achieved such a huge response without finding SWAZ’s brilliant online kit designer. It’s crazy to see two of my designs get produced, they top any of the other shirts in my collection. Fingers crossed some of these shirts might make it to the shelves!.”
— Joe Parton
Winners Wear SWAZ
Football leagues across the country and the world have been ground to a halt thanks to COVID-19, with millions of players, supporters and coaches all waiting patiently for their beloved game to get back underway.
Included in that long list of cancellation casualties is the Toolstation Western League in the South West of England. The league was put on hold when the second wave of the pandemic hit, with no clear decision or direction on what is going to happen to the teams in promotion, relegation and champion positions.
The SWAZ team wanted to congratulate and celebrate the teams in the division in our own little way! Since our launch in 2015, the SWAZ tagline has always been ‘Winners Wear SWAZ’ As much as it’s a bit of tongue and cheek we have seen a lot of celebrations, achievements, and silverware being lifted by the teams we have supplied in that time.
SWAZ Teams Topping the Charts
However, we feel that the current league standings in the Western League are remarkable and unique and worth a mention – as the three teams that SWAZ produces a kit for in that division are placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Coincidence do you think, or do our kits give players superpowers? ….. jokes, but maybe!
An Impressive Campaign
When the season came to an end, it was Plymouth Parkway that led the way, with an undefeated start to the campaign, bagging an impressive 11 wins out of the 13 games, with just two draws.
They scored 50 goals and conceded just 10, which means they have the hottest attack and the tightest defence.
Hot on their heels, much like last season before that was curtailed, is Tavistock AFC. Having played a couple of games less than Parkway and most of the other teams in the division, they are looking like they are going to be series title contenders if the league is to restart.
And flying in the third position is Exmouth Town, who had a tricky start to the season but have come flying back with solid defence and electric counter-attacking football.
We are dearly hoping that the season can get back underway and the three SWAZ clubs in the division can cross the white line and get back to battle in a bid to become league champions and prove that Winners Wear SWAZ.
We are incredibly proud, and humbled, to be the kit supplier of three fantastic clubs that have such a rich history of success in South West football. And much like the rest of the world, we can’t wait for the action to restart and football to return!
Show Racism the Red Card
Spreading the strong and incredibly important messaging behind the Communication Workers Union (CWU) anti-racism campaign, in coordination with Show Racism the Red Card, is of the utmost importance to our sport and society.
Sport, particularly football in the United Kingdom, always will be a powerful vehicle that can drive positive social change within our communities.
When CWU reached out to our team here at SWAZ, to ask for our help and support with their anti-racism messaging, we were buzzing to get behind a cause that stands for all the same things as us.
A Bespoke Kit to Support the Campaign
With our 3D kit designer, you can design your own football kit, and our role in this project was to produce a uniquely designed and branded shirt to be sold to raise both money and awareness for the ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ campaign.
The endless capability of our 3D football kit designer helped us to do just that, with this incredible design.
Legends of the Game
We were delighted to see some huge footballing names, such as Manchester United legend Bryan Robson, the great Viv Anderson MBE, Chris Hughton, Lee Clark and Chris Powell, just to name a few, sport the SWAZ brand on their crest.
With these footballing gods behind the cause, it was always going to take-off and nearly 600 special ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ football shirts were sold.
With £5 for every purchase going back to CWU to support both their anti-racism educational work and FareShare, the organisation distributing food to charities and across the country, the awareness and financial benefits of this campaign were incredible and we were delighted to be a part of it!
The CWU Show Racism the Red card is still on sale and can be purchased by clicking here.
“From the start to the finish of the project, SWAZ were professional, creative and incredibly bought into the product and campaign that we wanted to create.
“At an extremely competitive cost, we were to create a bespoke shirt that not only sold hundreds of replicas but was worn by dozens of legends of the game and massively raised the profile of our anti-racism message.
“As an organisation we would not hesitate to recommend SWAZ and they will be our automatic go-to company for any future campaigns of this type.“
— The Unions’ Head of Communications, Chris Webb
Come On You Yellows
When we partnered with Plymouth Parkway FC in 2016, as the South West club’s official football kit supplier, little did we know of the rollercoaster ride that we were all about to embark on.
In just three seasons of sporting SWAZ bespoke football kits, Parkway’s first team have won the South West Peninsula Premier League and entered the Western League Premier Division – finishing second in their first season.
Crossing the white line in a football kit that the players, staff and supporters can all be proud of is a necessity for a club like Plymouth Parkway FC, that consistently pull crowds of well into the hundreds. And that’s exactly what we’ve delivered!
Football Kit Supplier for Plymouth Parkway Football Club
The brief was simple, Parkway wanted a kit that reflected the swift, modern style of football they have always been renowned for playing on the pitch. If their goalkeeper was delivering balls 80 yards right on to his striker’s foot, then we were going to make sure that SWAZ could produce a football kit that would hit its mark too.
Their home football strip was a mix of the club’s traditional yellow and blue, with the Parkway badge and sponsors seamlessly displayed on the front of the football shirts.
Initially, we delivered four separate football kits, one home and one away strip for both the first team and the reserves. Now we kit out the entire club, from their youth team right the way through to the supporters and their dogs.
Alongside bags, tracksuits, jackets, scarfs and coats for the coaching staff – if you have the pleasure of watching a Parkway match you will see a sea of SWAZ garments on-and-off the pitch, all around Bolitho Park. Something that makes us extremely proud to look at every time we go to watch a game.
A Message From the Board
“After three long, tough seasons that have included one league win, one cup win and promotion to the Western League Premier Division – the kit we’ve sported in that time still all look as good as new.
“The ability to completely design your own kit really makes you stand out from the rest. With the SWAZ team’s help and enthusiasm and complete customers service, we been delivered a product that we love and have worn proudly across the South West for three years, and will continue to do so.”
We’re not for one minute suggesting that Plymouth Parkway FC have been so successful in the past three seasons because of their SWAZ bespoke football kit, but the age old saying ‘look the part, play the part’, still holds its value – and it’s been a pleasure to play any kind of part in the club’s recent success and drive up through the leagues.
We share the club’s ambition for growth, and its desire to keep moving forward, and will support Plymouth Parkway in all that they endeavour to achieve.
Green & Black Army
When one of Cornwall’s oldest football clubs, St Blazey FC, approached us with a brief for a football kit that they wanted to create, we were excited to take on the challenge of working with a club with such a rich footballing history.
Having won the old South West Peninsula Premier Division 13 times and the Cornwall Senior Cup 11 times, St Blazey FC, who has a football history spanning well over a 100 years, have a huge bank of success behind them.
The tactics behind the St Blazey Football Kit
They wanted to celebrate and honour the club’s history, by creating a football kit that not only showcased their traditional colours of green and black but had the versatility to perfectly incorporate the branding of their key sponsor, St Austell Brewery, into the design as well.
At SWAZ, we’re all about versatility, flexibility and choice, and with our 3D football kit designer, it is possible to create a football kit to a club’s exact preference, down to the final stitch. This is a sponsor’s dream, as we have a whole host of options available to incorporate advertiser’s branding into the design of a football kit, adding value to sponsors and opening up revenue streams for football clubs.
We achieved this with St Blazey FC by producing a football kit that included St Austell Brewery’s full-colour logo on the front of the shirt, and the famous Tribute beer across the back.
It was a simple process at SWAZ, because our 3D football kit designer is so easy to use and offers club’s free reign to create whatever kind of kit they want, with whichever colours they want to use and design aspects they want to incorporate.
We now cater for all of St Blazey’s first team kit and team wear needs and have done for two years, producing the home and away football kits, all their team wear, manager and coach kits and sideline supplies. We’ve even kitted out their mascot. It’s been a fantastic couple of years and a working relationship we’re proud to have.