Free to use: what the public domain means for your safety signs

Every sign you make on Safety-Signs.work has always been free to print and post. This week we put the details in writing, built them into the files you download, and made a few changes to the builder while we were at it.

What public domain means here

The new License & Reuse page explains it in a minute. The sign colors and signal words follow OSHA rules, and works of the U.S. Government have no copyright. The builder draws every sign with code, using only public-domain fonts and artwork, so the images you download carry the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark. Print them for your shop floor, put them in a training binder, sell them to customers. You don't need to ask, and you don't need to credit us.

The page is just as clear about the limits. Words you type onto a sign are yours, and we don't claim them. A company or product name is still its owner's trademark. ANSI's Z535 standards documents are copyrighted, and we don't reproduce them; we follow their layout conventions. And public domain says nothing about compliance: a sign still has to meet the rule that applies to your workplace. The website's own source code is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License, not public domain.

The license travels with the file

Sign files get passed around: a PNG goes into a safety manual, an SVG goes to a print shop, and a year later nobody remembers where it came from. Every PNG and SVG you download now carries a small block of metadata inside the file with the Public Domain Mark, a credit to the Build-Signs.work sign generator, and a link back to the site where you can make another. Image tools and search engines can read it. If you'd rather strip it out, that's up to you.

Fonts are covered too. Every typeface the builder uses is public domain, except Noto Sans CJK for Japanese, Korean and Chinese lettering, which uses the SIL Open Font License. That license says plainly that documents made with the font aren't covered by it, and the lettering is converted to shapes, so no font file ever goes into your sign.

A site map in every language

The new Site Map lists every page by name: each sign builder by category, every Sign Directory series, and the info pages, in all nine of the site's languages. You'll find it in the links above the footer, next to a new Terms of Service link. The full licensing for all nine Build-Signs.work sites, including each font's license text, lives in one place at build-signs.work/licenses.

Your sign comes first

On every builder page the sign is now at the very top, with Undo, Redo and every setting below it. You see the sign before the form, which makes a big difference on a phone.

Built with help from AI

Our Terms of Service now say this outright: the sites were built with the help of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. AI makes mistakes, and so do we. Check any sign against the OSHA or ANSI requirement that applies to you, and don't rely on the site for safety, legal or engineering decisions.

Try it with a CAUTION sign, then download a PNG and look at what's inside.