Warning and safety signs are so common today that it’s easy to overlook how recently they’ve changed.

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While signage has been a part of workplace and road safety for hundreds if not thousands of years, today’s standards and trends are fairly new. A lot has changed in just the past 20 years.

The first U.S. standard for safety signs didn’t come about until 1945, when the American Standards Association (ASA) published ASA Z35.1. Over the next few decades, the ASA would become the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and ASA Z35.1 would transform into a new standard, ANSI Z535. Much would change from the early 2000s on.

ANSI’s Six Standards

ANSI Z535 unified rules over safety colors and sign regulations into a single standard. Originally, this outlined five individual standards that safety and warning signs must meet, but ANSI Z535.6, released in 2006, added a sixth. These six rules, which stand today, fall into two “foundation” standards and four “application” standards.

The foundation standards outline the specific shades of color different safety signs must use and the criteria for symbols. Having set requirements for these factors ensured that signage is easy to read and understand, reducing the chances of an accident.

The four application standards regulate when and how to apply various kinds of safety signs. That includes temporary signage like barricade tape and tags that people only post until a hazard is gone.

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2011 and 2013 Updates

Some big changes came to ANSI Z535 in 2011 and again two years later in 2013. While the 2011 update wasn’t the first revision to the six standards, it made some of the most significant changes.

The 2011 edition of ANSI Z535 introduced two major updates to all four application standards. First, it added a new kind of sign, the “safety instruction,” which doesn’t describe a specific hazard but outlines important safety procedures or information. Secondly, it updated warning definitions to make a bigger distinction between hazards of various levels of danger.

These changes have made warning signs far more specific and helpful, but ANSI Z535 was originally optional. In 2013, however, OSHA updated its signage standards according to the 2011 version of ANSI Z535, which was the latest revision at the time.

Changes in 2017 and 2022

The next big change for warning and safety sign standards came in 2017 with another ANSI Z535 revision. This version made several significant updates, including removing brown and gray as acceptable colors for warning and safety signs. The documentation pointed out that while other signage systems use them, these colors don’t stick out enough to work for hazard communication.

The 2017 update to ANSI Z535 changed a lot of the regulation’s wording to make it easier to understand. It also incorporated some updates from the Code of Federal Regulations’ standard 49 CFR § 172.407, which covers warning labels in transportation.

2022 saw another revision, marking the tenth change since ASA Z35.1 came out in 1945. The updates in this edition include more in-depth guidelines about measuring sign colors and aligning standards to align better with other ones like ISO 3864-4 to simplify regulatory guidance.

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Warning and Safety Signs Today

These regulatory changes over the past 20 years have made safety signs today a different animal than what they were in the early 2000s. Of course, updates to ANSI Z535 and related standards aren’t the only ways they’ve changed. New technologies and trends have shaped these tools, too.

Here’s a closer look at some of the other ways warning and safety signs today have changed.

New Materials

Over the past 20 years, manufacturers and researchers have come up with several novel materials for warning signs. These new resources can offer several advantages to modern signage.

Smoother, less porous finishes make signs more reflective and easier to clean, helping keep them easy to read, regardless of the situation. Hydrophobic coatings can ensure dirt and grime slide off the surface. Similar finishes also help address graffiti, which porous surfaces make harder to remove and can block crucial safety information.

Many modern signs and the posts that hold them also break into even pieces. Materials that do this minimize damage in case of a collision, making the signs themselves safer.

Lighting

Many new safety and warning signs also feature LED lights now. Retroreflective signage has been standard for a while, using special coatings to reflect light and keep signs readable even at night. LED lighting takes this a step further by using built-in lights to catch passers-by’s attention.

Lighting signs in the past was typically not viable because older lighting technology was inefficient. By contrast, 95% of LED’s energy goes to emitting light, with just 5% releasing as heat waste. As a result, these tiny bulbs can last for extended periods without dimming and with minimal power needs.

Blinking LEDs make signs stand out from virtually any background. This complements ANSI Z535’s color standards to make safety information as visible as possible, preventing accidents.

Customization

One new signage trend that didn’t come from industry safety standards is a move toward customization. A couple of decades ago, safety signs featured minimal variety, but today, businesses often personalize them to considerable extents.

While regulations like ANSI Z535 limit things like color choices, icons and shapes, businesses often use custom safety signs. These may feature company-specific wording to improve communication with their workforce or address unusual hazards unique to their processes.

Technologies like 3D printing have made sign customization far easier and more versatile. Organizations can easily and quickly create custom signs to meet their specific needs.

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Warning and Safety Signs Keep Improving

Warning and safety signs may not seem like the kind of thing that changes often, but that isn’t the case. Standards and trends over signage have shifted considerably over the past 20 years. As more changes come, these signs will keep improving, becoming more effective, accessible and customizable.

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