Teams With Black and Orange Brand Colors
Which well-known teams use black and orange, what the pairing signals, how to tell it apart from navy and orange, and what to check before using these logos as vector artwork.
Contents
Black and orange is one of the most recognizable color pairings in North American sports. Several professional franchises and college programs build their identities around it, and the combination works well in logos because the two colors contrast strongly with each other and with white. This overview names the best-known examples, explains why the pairing reads the way it does, and covers what matters when you work with these logos as vector files. No official color codes, specifications or brand-guideline documents were supplied for this article, so exact color values are not given here.
The short answer: well-known black-and-orange teams
These teams are widely associated with orange and black as core colors, often with white, cream or gold as supporting tones:
- Cincinnati Bengals (NFL): orange and black, with white, built around tiger-stripe graphics
- San Francisco Giants (MLB): orange and black, with cream and gold as accents
- Baltimore Orioles (MLB): orange and black, with white, echoing the plumage of the oriole bird
- Philadelphia Flyers (NHL): orange and black, with white
- Oregon State Beavers (NCAA): orange and black
- Princeton Tigers (NCAA): orange and black, among the oldest uses of the pairing in American college sports
Teams update their palettes and secondary marks over time, so check the team's current official brand materials before you rely on any of these for a project.
Teams that are often mistaken for black and orange
Many teams pair orange with a very dark blue rather than true black. On screens, in small sizes and in low-quality images, navy can look black, which leads to mix-ups. The Denver Broncos, Chicago Bears and Houston Astros, for example, use orange with navy. The Edmonton Oilers and Syracuse Orange pair orange with blue. If you are matching colors for artwork, don't assume a dark tone is black just because it looks that way in a preview. Confirm it against the official specification.
What the pairing communicates
In general design practice, orange is read as energetic, warm and attention-grabbing, and black as strong, serious and authoritative. Together they produce a high-contrast, aggressive look that suits athletics. Several teams also tie the colors to a mascot: tigers for the Bengals and Princeton, and the oriole for Baltimore. Princeton's orange is commonly linked to the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau, the source of the name of the university's Nassau Hall.
There is one cultural caveat, especially in the US. Black and orange is also the signature palette of Halloween. Team branding avoids that reading through sharp geometry, mascot imagery and white or cream accents. Designers using the pairing for a non-seasonal brand should be aware of the association.
Working with these logos as vector artwork
- Check the file contents, not the extension. An SVG, EPS, AI or PDF file may contain true editable paths, an embedded raster image, or a mix of both. Open the file and inspect it before treating the logo as scalable.
- A raster preview, such as a PNG or JPG thumbnail, shows how the logo looks. It does not give you editable artwork, and its colors may be shifted by compression or screen settings.
- Two-color logos like these are often supplied with separate color, single-color and reversed versions. A reversed version, for example in orange and white on black, may use different artwork rather than simply swapping the fills.
- Screen colors, print colors and spot-color references can differ. Use the values a team specifies for each medium rather than sampling colors from an image.
Downloading is not the same as permission to use
Professional and collegiate team logos, names and often their specific color treatments are protected trademarks. Being able to download a logo file does not grant permission to modify the artwork, reuse any custom lettering or fonts in it, or use the logo commercially. These rights are controlled by the team or league and usually require a license. If you only need the color mood, you can build an original mark with a black-and-orange palette, provided it does not imitate a team's identity closely enough to cause confusion.
Gaps in the available information
This article does not include official hex, RGB, CMYK or spot-color values for any team, dates of palette changes, or details of specific logo files, because none were provided. For production work, get these from each team's official brand guidelines or licensing contact.