I'm a theater makeup and sometimes costume designer, and I have some general notes about which colors don't look good on people, which may give anyone who is interested in design a better idea of what colors shirts to use:

Dark skinned people:

Jamaicans have it all. They can wear almost any color and look fabulous. The only thing I would stay away from would be clothing that was very close to my own skin color, not because it looks bad, but because wearing a contrasting shirt would look amazing by comparison.

Medium or Brown toned people:

Again, they look good in most colors. I would stay away from orange or yellow, depending on the tone. Neon: bad. Pastel: fine.

Pale folk:

Us white folk have it tough when choosing colors because we have a lot more tones in our skin than darker people, mostly because blemishes show up a lot easier, and you can see our veins through our skin in some places. Most of us, especially the very pale white folk such as myself, do not look good in the following colors:

Yellow - Banana is okay. It's not great, but it wouldn't stop me from buying a shirt if it was printed on banana. The basic yellow on the other hand... it's hideous and would make any fair skinned person look like they're dying.

Neon colors: Terrible, especially neon orange and green, which tend to put all the focus on our veiny areas.

Pink: It only looks bad on very fair people. It brings out blemishes and scars.

Cream: "Look, it's a ghost walking down the street!"


Those are the main trouble colors. Hope this has been interesting if nothing else.