Symbol-Only Safety Label Formats Gain New Ground

This month in our series exploring the latest industry insight on effective product safety label design and symbol usage, we’ll focus on the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) approval of symbol-only safety labels.
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Moving Toward a Uniform System of Hazard Recognition

This month in our series exploring the latest industry insight on effective product safety label design and symbol usage, we’ll focus on the importance of consistency in the use of symbols and formats for both product safety labels and facility safety signs. For many years, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) regulations for workplace safety signs were based on outdated 1941-era formats. That changed about two and a half years ago. In October 2013, OSHA incorporated the latest versions of the ANSI Z535 safety sign, tag and color standards into its safety regulations, aligning them with today’s best practices. Let’s look at how this change, which allows for consistent sign and label formats using the latest standards, is impacting our products and our workplaces.

The Growing Trend: Multi-Symbol Product Warning Labels

As part of our series exploring the latest industry insight on effective product safety label design and symbol usage, this month’s topic focuses on the trend towards multi-symbol labels, showing both hazard description AND hazard avoidance visually – and ultimately moving to a fully graphic approach.

Understanding Symbols: Emergency Stop

One of the critical building blocks for your product’s safe design is the proper use of color-coding and symbols. This article will explore the new developments that have occurred in the field of marking emerge... Read More...
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Understanding Symbols: Laser Labeling

Geoffrey Peckham is CEO of Clarion Safety Systems and chair of both the ANSI Z535 Committee and the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 145- Graphical Symbols. Geoffrey can be reached at g... Read More...