Red exit sign on the way out, but new ‘running man’ pictogram is perplexing
It may be Canada’s second-most iconic red sign, next to the stop sign, but it’s on its way out in B.C.
The red exit sign that spells EXIT in bold sans-serif font and that’s been directing building occupants to the door leading from a structure for decades is being replaced.
The new sign that’s now the only option for any new buildings in B.C. built since 2012 is a green-and-white pictogram that depicts a human figure fleeing toward an open door.
Public-safety experts say it makes sense in a multilingual society to show rather than tell people where to go in an emergency, in the language of “go” green rather than “stop” red, but a small and unscientific survey in a Vancouver mall didn’t find anyone who instantly knew what the “running-man” sign meant.
“Walk or run? Run probably?” asked Adam Brioux, when shown a sign of the green-and-white pictogram. “It makes no sense. Because it says run. Please keep exit the way it is.”
Neither could Joanne Hua correctly identify what the pictogram was supposed to depict.
“I had no idea,” she said. But she wasn’t worried because in an emergency. “I’d look for the closest door to exit, obviously, but I just wouldn’t know what the sign would mean.”
Leon Yahya was also stumped when shown a picture of the running man — “Someone walking?” — but agreed it made sense to change to the symbol that’s similar to others around the world.
And that’s the reason the National Building Code was changed to recommend adoption of the sign as the new standard for exit signs, 40 years after it was first drawn by a Japanese designer: To bring our country’s emergency-exit signage into line with most countries (except the U.S.) across the world.
B.C. changed its building code in December 2012 and all new and some renovated buildings will need the new signs.
“It ensures that signs are universally recognizable, regardless of the language spoken by the individual looking at it,” spokeswoman Lindsay Byers of B.C.’s Ministry of Natural Gas Development and ministry responsible for housing said in an email.
“The pictograms are used internationally and are more familiar to those visiting British Columbia from other countries, which is particularly helpful in the event of an emergency,” she said.
The code isn’t retroactive, so the changes apply only to new construction, additions, substantial alterations or change-of-use, she said. Minor alterations don’t require the updated signs.
“The sign removes any language and therefore any language barriers and conforms to an international standard,” said Capt. Jonathan Gormick of the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services.
He said the pictograms are less complicated than those with words, especially in Canada, where its two official languages require both exit and sortie in some locations.
The red exit sign dates to the 1930s, when the National Fire Protection Association in the U.S. developed criteria for the emergency exit sign that were adopted by state and local governments.
The criteria stipulated size of the letters, but not the colour. Red, associated with fire trucks, fire extinguishers and fire alarms, was the overwhelming favourite.
In the late 1970s, the Japanese fire safety commission in a contest for a new national emergency exit sign selected the running-man design by Yukio Ota. He used green, the colour of “go,” as the main colour.
Around the same time, the International Organization for Standardization was about to adopt a strikingly similar green-and-white running man submitted by the Soviets.
But the ISO adopted Ota’s version — after some tweaking of the angle of the legs, which suggest people “run slowly” to the exits — and that sign or variations of it have been used around the world since 1985.
In Canada, both signs can be displayed in one building, as changes are graduated through renovations.
In B.C., “It would be highly unlikely for exit signs to be mixed on the same floor or area” and it would be up to municipal inspectors to ensure uniformity, said Byers.
Despite the code change, the lettered exit sign won’t be making a quick exit and will likely be around for years.