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Introducing Safety-Signs.work, a free workplace safety sign builder
Every workplace needs signs, and most of them need to say something slightly different from the stock sign on the shelf. The breaker panel needs a specific warning, the chemical room needs a label for the jug someone decanted cleaner into, and the new crew needs the message in Spanish as well as English. Ordering a custom sign takes days. Making one yourself in a word processor rarely looks right.
Safety-Signs.work is a free builder for exactly those signs. Pick a sign, type your message, and the sign redraws as you type, with the header colors, panels and proportions of a real workplace sign. There is no account to create, nothing to install and nothing to pay. It is one of a family of free sign builders, alongside its sibling sites for road, trail, park, airport and railroad signs, and it runs on the same sign engine.
What you can build
- Header signs in the style of OSHA 29 CFR 1910.145: DANGER, WARNING, CAUTION, NOTICE, safety instruction (SAFETY FIRST) and BIOHAZARD, plus red fire equipment and green emergency equipment signs. Each can use the classic OSHA layout or the ANSI Z535 style with the safety alert symbol.
- Accident prevention tags for lockout/tagout and out-of-service equipment, with ruled lines to write on.
- HazCom container labels with the GHS hazard pictograms.
- Pipe markers color-coded by contents, NFPA 704 diamonds and radiation signs.
- Exit sign faces for training material, floor plans and mockups.
Six languages, and bilingual signs
The whole site is available in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese, and the signs themselves can carry two languages at once. Add a second message under the first and the header picks up a second signal word, so a CAUTION sign becomes CAUTION / PRECAUCIรN. We wrote more about that in bilingual safety signs.
A directory of ready-made signs
Not sure where to start? The Sign Directory lists hundreds of ready-made messages, grouped by sign type: lockout notices, PPE reminders, chemical storage, confined spaces, forklift traffic, workplace rules and a few funny ones for the break room. Every entry opens in the builder with its settings filled in, so you can change a word and download it.
Download it the way you need it
Every sign can be opened as an SVG, which stays sharp at any size and is what a print shop or vinyl cutter wants. It can be downloaded as a PNG at sizes from a small web image up to a print-ready file, or saved as a Printable PDF on Letter, A4 or Tabloid paper, or at the sign's actual size. Our printing guide covers the details.
A word on compliance
The builder follows the colors and layouts that OSHA and ANSI describe, and our posts cite the regulations they discuss. But a sign is only one part of a safety program. Whether a particular sign satisfies a particular rule depends on your workplace, your hazards and sometimes your state, so check the regulation itself or your safety professional when it matters. Our guide to DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION is a good place to start.
Start with the sign you need most often. For most workplaces, that is a CAUTION sign.