Evacuation Plans — PMU Québec

Every evacuation plan is a piece of life-safety equipment before it's a piece of design — it has to work for someone reading it in smoke, low light, or a genuine emergency.

I work as an Evacuation Plan Technician / Graphic Designer at PMU Québec, producing the printed evacuation plans and fire-prevention signage that Québec's building and fire-prevention codes require for factories, retail spaces, offices, and institutional buildings. I take architectural floor plans from the project team and turn them into clear, code-compliant evacuation diagrams — routes, exits, assembly points, and the standardized symbol set for extinguishers, pull stations, and alarm equipment — ready for print and installation. This is ongoing production work, not a fixed engagement: new sites come in continuously, and existing plans get revised as buildings change.

• Convert architectural floor plans into evacuation-route diagrams with correct exit paths and assembly points.
• Apply a standardized fire-safety symbol legend consistently across every plan.
• Lay out plans for legibility at the print sizes actually used on-site — not just on a screen.
• Coordinate with fire-safety and project teams on code requirements and site-specific details.
• Revise and reissue plans as buildings and occupancies change.

Role

Evacuation Plan Technician / Graphic Designer

Tools

AutoCAD, Illustrator

Employer

PMU Québec

Status

Ongoing, employment-based

1. Stage 1

   Site & Floor Plan Intake

   Input from the project team

   Architectural floor plans and site details come in from the project and fire-safety teams — the starting reference for every drawing.

2. Stage 2

   Route & Symbol Drafting

   Core drafting work

   Exit routes, "You Are Here" points, and the standardized symbol legend (extinguishers, pull stations, alarms, assembly points) get placed and drawn against the floor plan.

3. Stage 3

   Code Review & Print Layout

   Compliance & legibility pass

   The layout is checked against Québec's building and fire-prevention code requirements and formatted for legibility at real installed sizes, not just on-screen.

4. Stage 4

   Delivery & Signage Production

   Ongoing

   Final files go out for printed signage installation on-site. Plans get revised and reissued whenever a building's layout or occupancy changes.

• Legibility under stress — poor lighting, smoke, and a reader who does not have time to interpret a busy layout.
• Durability and clarity across the different physical sizes plans are actually printed and mounted at.
• Strict consistency in the fire-safety symbol legend, plan after plan.
• Working accurately from architectural source drawings that are not always design-ready.
• Treating every plan as a working safety document, not a decorative one.

Evacuation plans are tied to specific buildings, businesses, and occupants, so I don't publish real examples here — that's consistent with how PMU Québec's client work is handled, and it protects the buildings and businesses the plans are made for. What's shown above is this page's own placeholder, not a produced plan.

• Precision is not a stylistic choice in technical work — it's the whole job. A plan that's almost right is a plan that's wrong.
• Production-floor thinking transfers directly: knowing how a file behaves at real print size, in real materials, before it leaves my screen.
• Working inside strict code and legibility constraints has made my freelance branding and print work more disciplined, not less creative — clarity and hierarchy have to earn their place either way.
• Ongoing, revision-based work rewards consistent systems over one-off cleverness — the symbol legend and layout grid have to hold up across hundreds of plans, not just one.

Looking for freelance design work instead — branding, print, or digital? That's what DomDesign is for.

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