Safety print is part of running a workplace
Every office, warehouse, lab and factory floor in Singapore carries a layer of safety print that nobody notices until an audit or an emergency. Evacuation plans next to the lifts. A sign on the riser cupboard. Hazard labels on the bottles in the cleaning store. A first aid poster in the pantry with names that left the company two years ago.
For facilities and admin teams, this print is easy to forget and awkward to reorder, because it is spread over many floors and sites and nobody owns it fully. This guide covers the safety signs, evacuation plans and labels a typical Singapore company prints, which standards and rules to check, how to choose materials, and how to keep everything current across several locations.
One note before we start. Printed signage supports your safety obligations, it does not define them. The rules come from the Workplace Safety and Health framework under MOM, the Fire Code administered by SCDF, and the Singapore Standards your consultants work to. Your WSH officer, fire safety manager or building management should confirm what each location needs. The printer's job is to produce it correctly and consistently.
Evacuation plans and fire exit maps
An evacuation plan shows people where they are, the nearest exits, the route to the assembly area, and where the fire extinguishers, hose reels and alarm points sit. It has to be readable in a few seconds by someone who has never seen the floor before, such as a visitor or a new contractor.
What makes a plan readable
- A clear "you are here" marker on every copy, which means each plan is unique to where it hangs. A single plan for the whole floor, posted in five places, is a common shortcut and a confusing one.
- The map oriented to the viewer: if you face the plan, left on the map should be left in the corridor. Plans printed straight from the architect's drawing often fail this.
- Simple floor outline without furniture detail, with exits and routes in strong colour and standard symbols.
- A legend and the assembly point, plus emergency contacts that are kept current.
Size and material
A3 is a common size for corridor plans, with A4 used in small rooms or near lift lobbies where space is tight. Print on rigid PVC or acrylic with a matte finish so that office lighting does not cause glare. Acrylic with standoff screws looks smarter in a reception area, while PVC with double-sided tape is quick to install and replace. Plans in a warehouse or carpark do better on aluminium composite, which survives knocks from trolleys.
Ask for the artwork as an editable file you own. Floors get renovated, and you want to update a plan without paying to redraw it from scratch.
Safety signs: prohibition, warning, mandatory and emergency
Safety signs follow a set visual language of colour and shape, which in Singapore is covered by SS 508 on safety colours and safety signs. A red circle with a bar means prohibition, a yellow triangle a warning, a blue circle a mandatory action, and a green rectangle shows emergency exits and first aid. Using the standard symbols matters more than design flair. People from different countries and languages work on the same floor, and a symbol is understood faster than text.
Signs that companies print most often include:
- No smoking, no entry and authorised personnel only signs for plant rooms, server rooms and risers.
- Warning signs for wet floors, low ceilings, electrical panels and forklifts in shared loading areas.
- Mandatory signs for safety shoes, hearing protection or eye protection in workshops and labs.
- First aid box, AED and eye wash station markers.
- Fire extinguisher and hose reel location signs mounted above the equipment, so they are visible when the equipment itself is hidden behind a crowd or a cabinet.
Exit signs and emergency lighting are a separate case. Lit exit signs are part of the building's fire safety system and fall under the Fire Code, so they are usually supplied and maintained by the building or a fire safety contractor. Printed photoluminescent signs can supplement them in some places, but confirm with your fire safety manager before ordering any sign that relates to exits.
Hazard labels for chemicals and the cleaning store
Even an office has chemicals: cleaning agents, printer toner, aerosols in the pantry, solvents in the facilities cupboard. Labs, workshops and warehouses have many more. When a chemical is decanted from its original container into a spray bottle or a smaller tub, the new container needs a label, and that is where most labelling gaps appear.
Singapore uses the GHS system for hazard communication, set out in SS 586, with standard pictograms in a red diamond, signal words and hazard statements. Your safety data sheets tell you what goes on each label. For printing, the practical questions are:
| Container | Label material | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Spray bottles and small tubs | Polyester or vinyl label with laminate | Resists cleaning agents and wiping |
| Drums and large containers | Heavy-duty polyester with permanent adhesive | Handles outdoor storage and handling |
| Shelf and cabinet markings | Vinyl or rigid PVC sign | Shows what is stored where |
| Short-term decanting | Pre-printed blank GHS labels | Staff fill in the product by hand |
Paper labels are a false economy here. Once a cleaning agent runs down the side of a bottle, a paper label smudges and becomes unreadable, which defeats the point.
WSH notices, posters and contact boards
Alongside the signs, most workplaces display a set of notices: the company's WSH policy, the emergency response team with names and phone numbers, first aiders on each floor, and posters from safety campaigns. These change more often than signs, so print them for easy updates.
- Use a slide-in acrylic frame or a magnetic board, so a new A4 or A3 insert replaces the old one in seconds.
- Print names and phone numbers on the insert only, never on the permanent sign.
- Date every insert in small type in a corner. It makes audits faster and shows when something is out of date.
Facilities teams handling a recent office move will recognise much of this from the wider signage refresh, which we cover in our guide to office signage when you move or renovate.
Keeping safety print consistent across sites
The real problem for many companies is not one floor, it is twelve sites with signs ordered by different people over ten years. Some are faded, some use old symbols, and the emergency contacts on half of them are wrong.
- Audit first. Walk each site with a checklist and photograph every sign and plan. This is also when you find missing ones.
- Build one sign library. Agree a set of templates with standard symbols, colours, sizes and fonts, in line with your brand where it does not conflict with the standard.
- Write a spec per sign. Size, material, fixing method and location. Our article on writing a print spec sheet suppliers can follow shows how to turn this into something a vendor can quote on.
- Keep the master files in one place, with version numbers, so a reprint for a new site uses the current design. The same approach we describe for managing print artwork files across a corporate team works for safety signs.
- Schedule a yearly review of contact boards and plans, ideally tied to your fire drill.
How we help facilities and admin teams
We print safety signs, evacuation plans, hazard labels and WSH notice frames for offices, warehouses, labs and retail sites across Singapore. You can send us the drawings and the content approved by your WSH officer or fire safety manager, and we will lay out each plan with its own "you are here" point, suggest materials for each location, and keep the files on record for reorders.
For multi-site companies, we can produce the whole set in one run, packed and labelled by site and floor, so installation is straightforward. Larger jobs often go into wide format production, which you can read about on our wide format services page. To start, send us your site list and a few photos of the current signage through our contact page, and we will come back with a plan and a quote.
