Posters have long been used to communicate safety messages to workers
in industry, and to the general population (often in a fairly
paternalist manner). The design of some of these posters is very
striking; we include a few examples in the gallery below.
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Don’t fool with compressed air (Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents, via Wellcome Library, London)
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Long hair is dangerous, for the London College of Printing, by Tom
Eckersley, a famous English poster artist.
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Handle with care, Missouri Work Projects Administration. The WPA was an
agency in the USA created as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and provided
employment to millions of people during the Great Depression.
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De-energize before maintenance work on equipment, a Soviet-era poster.
Note the pedagogical detail with an inset zoom on the pressure gauge.
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Use machine guards, another Soviet-era poster.
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Watch for protruding nails, another Soviet-era poster.
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Homo Computerus, by Jerzy Skakun from
CIOP, the Polish occupational safety
agency.
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Careful of the slope!, by Jerzy Golonka from
CIOP, the Polish occupational
safety agency.
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Preventing fuel errors in aviation, from
USAIG.
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Syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease, was a major source of health
problems in the USA before the 1950s, when penicillin was widely used as
a very effective treatment. It could remove workers from the workforce,
when they were needed for the war effort. Poster by the US Work Projects
Administration.
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The importance of personal protective equipment such as safety shoes is
highlighted by this poster from technology company IBM.
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Poster by technology company IBM promoting occupational safety. By Ken
White.
Please note that these posters are not our own work, and are excluded
from the Creative Commons Attribution licence that covers most of the
content in this site.
