Team Fit-out

Office signage: guiding, identifying, and securing your spaces

Signage is not a graphic veneer: it is a safety infrastructure enforceable under the French Labour Code (R4227-1 et seq.), with a measurable ROI of 18 to 24 months on head offices larger than 1,500 m². On a tertiary floor plate, a visitor covers 60 to 120 metres between reception and a meeting room, crossing 4 to 8 decision points where legibility determines lost time. This system articulates three regulatory frameworks (Labour Code, ISO 7010, 2005 law), a brand guideline, and a space lifecycle. Kytom manages it as a technical infrastructure, from the on-site audit through to the handover report, with a single project manager per office.

regulatory framework

Three enforceable regulatory bodies

Tertiary signage simultaneously meets three enforceable regulatory bodies. The Labour Code (articles R4224-1 et seq., R4227-1 et seq.) requires the marking of emergency exits, the display of fire safety instructions, and a periodic six-monthly inspection of safety lighting. Article R.4227-5 also conditions the maximum capacity of the floor plate on units of passage: a single emergency staircase 1.40 to 1.50 m wide allows a maximum of 100 people per floor (Labour Code, R.4227-4 and R.4227-5), a structuring data point for the signage sizing of evacuations.

Safety pictograms and colours fall under the ISO 7010 standard, adapted for floors, walls, and door leaves. The law of 11 February 2005 and the RGAA set the visual accessibility requirements, applicable to character height, contrast, and tactile or braille media in reception areas.

method

Arbitrate upstream rather than at the end of the project

Our reading differs from the market on this precise point. The industry orthodoxy treats these three frameworks as separate graphic constraints, handled at the end of the project by the communications studio. In practice, the absence of upstream arbitration between the Labour Code (enforceable safety), ISO 7010 (standardised pictograms), and RGAA (accessibility) remains the leading cause of rework after delivery on our recent projects. Kytom therefore aligns these three frameworks in a single compliance file from the audit onwards, enforceable during safety commission reviews and internal audits.

05 — Inspirations