Carolina blue

Carolina blue (occasionally referred to as Tar Heel blue) is the shade of blue used as one of the official school colors of the University of North Carolina. The name is derived from the popular usage of "Carolina" to refer to the university. For clarity in branding and marketing, UNC Creative has defined the color as Pantone 542 and declared the CMYK (60, 19, 1, 4). This CMYK results in a Hex code of #62C6F2. However, the university has chosen the hex value of #4B9CD3 as their web safe Carolina Blue due to contrast issues and Section 508 web requirements. None of the colors match the selected Pantone 542 which would be a hex value of #6699C2. The North Carolina Tar Heels athletics department has their own formulation for Carolina blue. Carolina athletics blue has the same CMYK color representation as the university's version of Carolina blue, but the RGB representation for Carolina athletics blue is (123, 175, 212). This results in a Hex code of #7BAFD4, the official matching hex code for Pantone 542 C.