Carolina Blue (sometimes called Tar Heel Blue) is the shade of blue used as one of the official school colors of the University of North Carolina. The name comes from the popular use of “Caroline” to refer to the university. For branding and marketing clarity, UNC Creative has defined the color as Pantone 542 and stated that the CMYK representation is 60% cyan, 19% magenta, 1% yellow, and 4% black. This CMYK gives a hexadecimal code of #62C6F2. However, the university chose the hexadecimal value of #4B9CD3 as the Carolina Blue Web Safe due to contrast issues and Section 508 web requirements. None of the colors match the selected Pantone 542, which would be a hexadecimal value of #6699C2 , RGB of (102,153,194 ) and a CMYK value of 47.21.0.24. The athletic department of the North Carolina Tar Heels has a proprietary formula for the Carolina Blue. Carolina Athletic Blue has the same CMYK color representation as the uni version of Carolina Blue, but the RGB representation for Carolina Athletic Blue is Red 123, Green 175, and Blue 212. It provides a hex code of #7BAFD4, the corresponding official hex code for Pantone 542 C. The use of blue at UNC dates back to 1795, when the university’s dialectical (blue) and philanthropic (white) societies chose representative colors. A blue or white ribbon was worn by members of the society at college receptions, and blue or white ribbons were affixed to graduation diplomas. Blue and white have been the sporting colors of UNC since 1880, when the UNC football team adopted the blue and white colors of Di Phi Corporations.