Proper Content of a Safety Sign
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Learn MoreANSI/ISO Standards are the Starting Point for Safety Sign Content
The content of your facility’s safety signs is something that needs to be thoughtfully considered. Off-the-shelf, standard Clarion Safety signs may suit the majority of your needs, but there are times when customization is needed to make the sign’s content directly relevant to a given situation. Whether you use standard signs or customized signs, the guiding principles that define your safety sign system should begin with the ANSI and ISO standards for safety sign and symbol design.
How have safety signs evolved over the past 100 years?
See our timeline of safety sign best practices.
The Clarion Safety Sign Development Process
Our experienced Customer Service Department staff are your resource to help choose formats, symbols and text that match up with the content you’ve determined needs to be communicated. Our process is collaborative: you know your workplace and the potential hazards that need to be warned about; Clarion Safety knows the latest best practices and standards and how they can be used to communicate safety.
We’ll also look to our database of sign designs, designs we’ve created before for customers in related industries or who have had similar content customization requirements. Clarion Safety has the largest library of safety sign and label designs in the world; which means we have highly efficient processes that can provide you with standardized and customized safety signs that are consistently designed to comply with the latest codes and regulations.
Safety Sign Content Defined
The actual content of each of your safety signs hinges on its type:
- Hazard alerting signs (DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION signs)
- General safety policy signs (NOTICE signs)
- Safety instruction signs
- Fire and emergency equipment location signs
- Evacuation route signs
Each type of sign has its own rules for content – rules that we know well because of our extensive participation on the ANSI, ISO, ASTM and NFPA standards-writing committees; committees responsible for defining industry best practices.
Below is a table that shows the proper content for each of the five types of signs listed above. At Clarion Safety, we incorporate graphical symbols with text for practically every sign we produce. This facilitates the communication of a portion (or all) of your sign’s message across language barriers. Symbols also bring an increased degree of noticeability to your signs; helping them to stand out from their surroundings.
Type of Signs |
Proper Content |
|---|---|
| Hazard alerting | A description of the potential hazard, the consequence of interaction with the hazard, how to avoid the hazard and the seriousness level of the hazard. |
| General safety policy | Security, housekeeping and general safety policies. |
| Safety instruction | Numbered lists of procedures or instructions. |
| Fire & emergency equipment location | Large graphical symbols and short identifying text statements specific to each type of equipment. |
| Evacuation routes | ‘You-are-here’ location plans that illustrate escape routes to the nearest exit doors from any given position. |
