We asked AI to design a new 2026/27 Celtic kit - and the results were rather unfortunate
AI won’t be putting fashion designers out of business any time soon, it seems
Christmas is almost upon us, and one imagines that many football fans up and down the land will be unwrapping brand new replica kits when the big day finally arrives - not that all of them will necessarily be entirely appreciated by their new owners. After all, there are plenty of current kits which aren’t very popular with the supporters of the team that wears them.
For instance, a few Celtic fans will likely have to put on a slight strained smile as they rip the paper off of their somewhat divisive change shirts from the 2025/26 season. When first unveiled, their third kit had some supporters describe its design as “horrific” and even “a social experiment.” Pity the loving mother who unwittingly purchases one for their child just a few months after they called it “rotten” on social media.
With that less than festive thought in our minds, we got to wondering whether Celtic’s kits could be improved upon – but as we lack any meaningful design talent ourselves, we decided to do what all people lacking inspiration or skill seem to do these days, and ask AI to design a kit for us. And the results were… Well, not the breast. Sorry, best.
AI designs Celtic’s new kit for the 2026/27 season
We asked a well-known generative AI programme to design a brand new Celtic kit which was based on their traditional design but which added some new and innovative elements to spice things up a bit. But would it come up with something interesting, or simply insane? As is usually the case with AI, it was the latter.
As you can see from the image above, AI decided that the best way to iterate on the classical green and white hoops was to get rid of one of the hoops and replace it with circles which a human designer might have considered placing somewhere slightly different.
Most of the other elements of this design are rather nice, really – a nice chunky collar, no needless jazzy trim, a lovely rich emerald green. Unfortunately, while the algorithm we used clearly has had some basic fashion concepts programmed in, nobody has gotten round to teaching it about the full range of human anatomy.
Or perhaps that’s just our childish imagination. We’ll admit that, when we titled our head the other way, it started to look more like the Iron Giant staring at us. Which isn’t necessarily what most kit manufacturers would go for, but would likely be an improvement nonetheless.
Besides, once you’ve stopped tittering at the kit, you’ll notice that there’s something more going on inside those carefully-positioned circles – and that’s an idea that AI came up with which we have to admit might have some merit if it was done slightly differently…
Lisbon Lions make appearance on bizarre Celtic kit design
Although not made entirely clear by the AI-generated image, the detailing inside those unfortunately-placed circles is supposed to be a picture of Celtic’s legendary Lisbon Lions, who won the European Cup back in 1967. But there’s more to it than that.
The image would be added to the shirt in “an extremely faint, tone-on-tone watermark pattern” – so says the AI, heaven knows if that’s really a thing – which would be “almost invisible under normal light.”
“Only when the shirt catches the sun at Celtic Park (or when floodlit at night) do the ghostly figures of Jinky, Bertie, Big Billy and the rest suddenly shimmer into view,” the description continues.
So in dim light, fans would be wearing oddly-positioned circles on a part of their body they may not otherwise wish to draw attention to. But in bright light, they would be drawing attention to a silhouette of Jimmy Johnstone instead. We’re not sure how much better that is.
All that we are certain of at this point is that AI probably isn’t ready to start designing football shirts, and that maybe anyone disappointed to get a brand new Celtic third kit this season should be more grateful than they might otherwise be. Apparently, it could be worse.