‘How do I know how many signs my building needs?’:
This is something we are often asked by customers who are keen to make sure their buildings are compliant to the latest health and safety legislation.

The number of signs required by a business is dependent on certain factors: the size of the building, the use of the building and the type of occupants or visitors.

The size of the building:

The larger the building the more signs may be required. A more accurate factor would be, how many entrance and exit points a building has and how complicated is the internal design of the building? This will determine how many fire exit signs will be required for the emergency escape routes, fire exits etc.

The Use of the Building:

Signage requirements should be assessed as part of your overall risk assessments. The biggest contributor is, what is the nature of your business? Certain businesses will have more hazards associated with them for example where heavy machinery is involved this area or building will require more safety signs. Another contributor is if the building is open to general public or just employees who have been trained for the environment they work in. If so increased safety signage may be required to draw the attention of visitors. Increased way-finding signage may be required to safely and efficiently guide visitor traffic through the building.

The occupants of the building:

The occupants of the building need to have their needs assessed. Specialist signage needs to be incorporated to improve accessibility under the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act).
Schools for example will need age appropriate signage.

To make sure your building has included all the signage needed, make sure your company has included signage in all aspects of your company risk assessments. Whereever a risk has been identified, ask yourself could a sign help reduce risk, or significantly raise awareness of that risk?

Using plans and drawings of your premises can provide an efficient method of determining the signage you require; similarly an audit on foot through out all the possible routes of access and working spaces can identify problem areas.

Be sure to pay attention to the Health & Safety (Safety Signs & Signals) Regulations of signage as the icons for safety signage regularly change. The most up to date icons and changes are shown below:

Changes to signage symbols due to ISO-7010

These symbols are important to pay attention too as they comply with ISO 7010. ISO 7010 has been developed to provide consistency in design across the EU. The new designs have now been phased in and all our signs follow The Health & Safety (Safety Signs & Signals) Regulations 1966 and conform to BS ISO 7010 where applicable.

JH Signage Ltd recommends certain guidelines which means our customers fulfil legal obligations without breaking the bank. We advise that you don’t need to change all your signs to ISO 7010 but if you require a new sign, or a replacement sign, then you should be insisting on ISO 7010 symbols. As ‘best practice’ you shouldn’t really mix symbols from the old and new standards. We no longer manufacture the old symbols as standard but if you need to add a sign and your existing signs are all BS 5499 and you don’t want to mix signs from different legislative standards, we can provide it as a custom made sign. Call or email us today for advice on what signs you may need: 0207 252 0118 / designteam@jhsignage.co.uk

For a head start on what signage to start with see our blog post on the top 10 signs used in public buildings.