The Pittsburgh Steelers were founded in 1933. Over the course of the team's history, the team has had several logos while wearing virtually the same uniforms over the years, with subtle changes made to give the uniforms an updated look. The team colors, uniforms, and logo are often ranked as being among the best in the NFL.

The Steelers have used black and gold as their colors since the club's inception, the lone exception being the 1943 season when they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles and formed the "Steagles"; the team's colors at that time were green and white as a result of wearing Eagles uniforms. Originally, the team wore Gold-colored helmets and black jerseys. Unique to Pittsburgh, the Steelers' black and gold colors are now shared by all major professional teams in the city, including the Pittsburgh Pirates in baseball and the Pittsburgh Penguins in hockey. These also are the colors of the city's official flag.

One exception that the stripes were omitted prior to the 1960s was from the aforementioned "Steagles" season because the team wore the Eagles uniforms as a cost-saving measure. The Eagles' jerseys at the time were green with white shoulders and no stripes. The Rooneys have acknowledged that because the combined team wore the Eagles uniforms that year, it is the only time in team history that the colors were something other than black & gold.

The other jersey featured gold sleeves and a black version of the stripes, and were worn in road games when the home team elected to wear their colored jerseys. The team continued this way through the 1965 season.

The Steelers' "Batman"-style uniforms the team experimented with in 1966-1967.

Although they have been commonly called the "Batman" uniforms, Dan Rooney later made public his reasoning behind the uniforms. With his father still running the team and the Vince Lombardi-led Green Bay Packers being the class of the NFL, the younger Rooney (who still had a much smaller role with the team at the time) didn't want to follow the lead of other NFL teams trying to copy the Packers and wanted the Steelers to have a more unique look. Coinciding with this was the development of the Golden Triangle in the city of Pittsburgh in the 1960s, so Rooney decided to give the uniforms a connection to the growing downtown district with the gold triangle-like diamond.

Although both Rooney and NFL Films's Steve Sabol liked the look (Sabol mentioned that you could easily tell when the Steelers played), the players didn't, adding that they looked like clowns or Batman, which is likely where the "Batman" rumors began. Due to primitive washing techniques at the time (as well as NFL teams frequently reusing the uniforms, unlike today where current athletic supplier Reebok gives teams new equipment every game), the Steelers had trouble washing the uniforms because the gold triangle faded easily. Rooney was even asked on a radio show in Dallas when the team was playing the Cowboys on October 30, 1966 if the team was wearing the uniforms for Halloween.

The uniforms were retired after two seasons. The team has mentioned publicly as recently as 2007 that they will never wear them in a game again. However, in 2008, the team began to sell customized versions of the jerseys on their official Web site.

After just two years with the "Batman" uniforms, the current uniform designs were introduced in 1968.

The design was a modernized version of the pre-1966 black design and consists of gold pants and either black jerseys or white jerseys, except for the 1970 and 1971 seasons when the Steelers wore white pants with their white jerseys. After a two-year hiatus, the Northwestern-style stripes returned for good, with the black jerseys getting white stripes in the two gaps of the gold stripes while the white jerseys got black outlines on the gold stripes. Both variations have been heavily used in team apparel. Although the stripes initially went all the way around the sleeves, since the 2000 season they now stop in the middle of the jersey; this is due to football jerseys in general shortening the sleeves to reduce holding calls.

The Steelers are often praised and recognized with their uniforms due to their traditional style while other teams such as the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings have introduced more radical uniforms in recent years. When Reebok signed a contract to become the exclusive uniform supplier to the NFL in 2000 (replacing Nike, whom the Steelers had from 1997-2001, and had Starter before Nike) Reebok had announced that all NFL teams would be changing their uniforms for the 2002 NFL season, when Reebok's contract took effect. Dan Rooney, one of the league's most influential owners, stated several times in public that the Steelers would NOT be changing their uniforms despite Reebok stating otherwise. Eventually, Reebook rescinded its proposal due to several owners protesting after taking Rooney's lead. (The Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks redesigned their uniforms for 2002 anyways.) Aside from introducing their throwbacks in 2007, the Steelers have not made any changes to their uniforms since Reebook took over as the league's supplier.

In 1979, the team gave the Big Ten's Iowa Hawkeyes permission to use the Steelers uniform designs, since both teams had the same color scheme. Aside from Iowa using its Tigerhawk logo as well as continuing to use the block numbers that the Steelers themselves replaced with the rounder numbers in 1997, the two uniform sets remain identical today.

But while the other two teams that have elected to wear white as the "home" team in the Super Bowl (Dallas in Super Bowl XIII and Super Bowl XXVII, and Washington in Super Bowl XVII) traditionally wear white at home, a variety of reasons were rumored as to why the Steelers elected to wear white in Super Bowl XL.

The jersey is black with the numbers, names and stripes all in gold and it also contains a 75th Season logo on the right side of the upper chest part of the jersey. The jersey is considered to be from the 1960 season. The pants are white with a single gold stripe running down the length of the outside of each leg, surrounded by thinner black stripes on either side of the gold stripe. The helmets are gold with the Steelers logo on the right side and a single black stripe running down the center from front to back. The helmet was worn during the 1962 season, which was the first year that the present Steelers logo began to appear on their helmets. The only two differences are that the logo on the original helmet read 'Steel', whereas Steelers appears on the helmet that the team wore for the two games in 2007 and that the face mask on this version of the helmet is black, whereas the original face mask color on the gold helmet was gray. The throwbacks, minus the "75th season" patch, are now officially the team's alternate uniform as of the 2008 season, and are usually worn for games that honor the team's alumni.

Since their introduction in 2007, the Steelers have worn the throwbacks the NFL maximum of twice per year, with the team's annual home matchup against the rival Baltimore Ravens receiving one of the allottments each year. The other matchups have included the Buffalo Bills in 2007, the New York Giants in 2008 (the first loss in the throwbacks to date), and the San Diego Chargers in 2009 (Sunday night contest).

2010 will see the team sporting the throwback uniforms at the October 17 game against the Cleveland Browns, and for the November 14, Sunday Night Football game against the New England Patriots.

The throwback gold helmets have often been worn in practice in addition to the regular black helmets, a highly unusual move among NFL teams whose throwbacks use a different helmet than their current design.

A press conference was held at Heinz Field to unveil the 80th season throwback uniform.

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