Guide To ANSI Z535 Compliance For Safety Signs

The ANSI Z535 Standard for safety signs, labels, tags, and barricade tapes contains nearly 300 pages of technical information in six sections; some of which are integral to the others, and some not relevant to applications in the electrical utility industry.

This can make the task of designing your safety signs, labels, and tags challenging and time-consuming. The cost of just purchasing the standard is in excess of $500.

This guide breaks down the complexity. We’ll walk you through the five most important design elements of the ANSI Z535 standard in an easy-to-understand way. You’ll be able to assess your existing safety signs and confidently draft new designs that meet compliance.

What is the ANSI Z535 Standard?

ANSI (Z535) is an American standard that sets forth a system for presenting safety and accident prevention information. It is revised every 4-5 years.

While it’s a voluntary standard, it becomes mandatory when referenced by regulations that your utility must follow, such as those from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and the NESC (National Electrical Safety Code). Nearly all U.S. regulations requiring hazard identification markings incorporate parts of ANSI Z535.

Essentially, Z535 is a design guide that includes elements such as:

• Colors
• Symbols and pictograms
• Message content and formatting
• Font choice

Z535 attempts to not only promote uniformity but also increase the recognition effectiveness of the safety/hazard message. The effectiveness of all of the critical design elements has been established under controlled tests and/or experience and logic of industry and safety experts.

It’s important to remember that ANSI Z535 is a design guide. It won’t tell you how many signs you need on a substation fence, but it will tell you exactly how those signs should be designed for maximum effectiveness. For application requirements, you’ll need to consult codes like OSHA or the NESC.

Key Design Elements

Color

Z535.1 defines a measurable window of tolerance for the specific safety colors. This window of tolerance ensures consistency, ensuring they are instantly recognizable.

Header panels use bright, vivid colors behind the signal word at the top of the sign. Safety Red, Orange, Yellow, and Blue are reserved for these panels to convey the level of risk.

Message panels use black text on a white background (or white on black, depending on which is considered more legible in the application) with the lettering and safety symbol pictogram.

The standard doesn’t provide specific guidance towards what scheme would better suit specific applications, and so that consideration is left to the posting utility to determine. Generally, text/background scheme is most relevant to making the sign outline more conspicuous against the mounting surface.

In our experience, black text on a white background is typically the most effective in outdoor environmental applications where shadow, light, and visual patterns of varied objects interact.

Header

Colors specific to the chosen header signal word are used exclusively to other colors within the signal word panel.

• DANGER: Used for the most serious hazards that will cause death or serious injury if not avoided. Formatted with white text on a Safety Red background.
• WARNING: Indicates a hazard that could result in death or serious injury. Formatted with black text on a Safety Orange background.
• CAUTION: Used for hazards that could cause minor or moderate injury. Formatted with black text on a Safety Yellow background.
• NOTICE: This is for information considered important but not hazard-related (e.g., policy or property damage). It uses italicized white text on a Safety Blue background.

The safety alert symbol is not used with NOTICE, safety instruction, or safety equipment location signs. The signal word header panel is to contain only the signal word and safety alert symbol.

It is important to understand the level of hierarchical risk priority the standard associates and assigns to these words.

The standard does not provide guidance towards specific physical location or equipment applications where a given hazard word may be appropriate, but only which hazard word should be used relevant to the level of hazard as determined by the user/poster of the sign.

Typestyle, Justification, Size

The ANSI Z535 standard specifies typography rules to maximize readability.

• Typeface: Use a clean, simple Sans Serif font like Helvetica or Arial.

• Capitalization: Use mixed case (sentence case) for message panels, as it’s easier to read from a distance. A short phrase like “HIGH VOLTAGE” can be set in all caps for emphasis.
• Alignment: Text should be left-aligned with a ragged right edge. This helps the eye easily track from one line to the next. Again, a short, one line phrase can be centered for emphasis.

• Text Size: The font size directly relates to the safe viewing distance—the distance a person needs to be from a hazard to read the sign and react safely. ANSI Z535 provides a chart that matches letter height to viewing distance.

Message Content

The standard suggests providing and breaking the message into 3 components: an avoidance action statement, a hazard description statement, and a consequence statement. Examples are as follows:

Avoidance Action: Do not dig!

Hazard Description: Buried electrical cables

Consequence: Contact by excavation equipment may result in death or serious injury

The level of detail can be adjusted based on the intended audience. For instance, the interior of a locked padmount equipment cabinet might only need to be identified with the safety message; “HIGH VOLTAGE”; since only trained workers with an understanding of the hazard would have access and would be working on those components.

However, a hazard message on the outside of the cabinet intended to warn the general public should contain all three elements, since that audience would not be expected to be knowledgeable of the hazards it contains.

Pictogram Symbols

ANSI Z535 encourages the use of effective safety symbol pictograms and provides guidelines for their development. Safety symbol pictograms aid in quick identification of the hazard, especially among speakers whose primary language is other than that which the written mess

Effective safety symbol pictograms employ the characteristics of:

• Legibility: the viewer’s ability to visually distinguish the key elements of a symbol
• Simplicity: no unneeded detail or decoration
• Clarity: the symbol is likely to be understood as intended

Symbols can illustrate the hazard itself, mandatory actions (e.g., wear PPE), or prohibited actions (often shown with a red circle and slash). The chosen pictogram must always be compatible with the written message.

Electromark Helps You Create ANSI Z535-Compliant Products

Navigating the ANSI Z535 standard can be a major undertaking, but you don’t have to do it alone. At Electromark, we purchase every new revision of the standard and conduct a thorough review to ensure we are always up-to-date.

Our graphic arts design staff is intimately familiar with the design elements of the standard and serves as the front line in ensuring that your signs, labels, and tags conform to the critical design elements of Z535.

As a service to our customers, we encourage you to reach out to us to review your old designs and recommend and make necessary design changes.