Warning symbols need to communicate their message clearly and forcefully. But over the years, the meaning of some logos or patterns can change completely. That is what the biohazard symbol has tried to fight from the beginning. Its appearance is shocking and aggressive, but how did it come to be that way?
A couple of years ago we talked about the Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Finland. Besides handling and storing hazardous material, the project's managers face another challenge: communication. The repository will accept waste for about a hundred years, and then it will be sealed. How do you warn future generations about the danger present there?
Can't we just use the standard symbol for ionizing radiation? Actually… no. We know the meaning of that symbol, but it is very likely that it will be misinterpreted in the future. It's not hard to imagine an archaeologist twenty thousand years from now concluding that the symbol represented a Sun cult or something similar. No risk symbol escapes that problem, but some acknowledge it more than others. One of them is the biohazard symbol. Biohazard.
(Editor's note: Spanish subtitles)
The Origins of the Biohazard Symbol
Environmental health engineer Charles Baldwin was involved in the development of the biohazard symbol, which was initiated by the Dow Chemical Company in 1966. In an interview for the New York Times magazine, Baldwin explained that his job was to design containment systems for the Cancer Institute at the NIH (National Institutes of Health).
The lack of standards was obvious, and each laboratory used its own warning symbols. Baldwin joined forces with Dow Chemical's marketing department and shared a series of parameters: It had to be unique, impactful enough to be easily remembered, something «memorable but meaningless», so the public could be educated about its meaning. It also needed to be symmetric, easy to stencil, and acceptable across different ethnic groups.
«Memorable but Meaningless»
The first phase of the study combined half a dozen original symbols with very famous ones, such as the Texaco star, the Red Cross, and the swastika, and participants were asked to guess their meanings. The biohazard symbol got the fewest correct guesses. A week later, that same half-dozen symbols were combined with 36 others, and participants had to indicate which one they remembered best. The biohazard symbol ranked first. Memorable, and meaningless.
Baldwin presented the symbol to the scientific community with a paper in Science, and almost immediately it got the green light. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control), OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and the aforementioned NIH quickly adopted the new symbol. Today, the biohazard symbol perfectly fulfills its purpose (beyond some alternative uses that didn't please Baldwin too much, like fashion), but the real question is: Will it stand the test of time?
Source: Vox on YouTube
