About Action Direction

Action Direction is a consultancy company that helps its clients to communicate safety messages. Communicating a complex safety message is difficult. Communicating a complex safety message to someone who has poor reading skills is especially difficult. Action Direction creates safety signs that everyone can understand.

Vision: Oi is widely recognised and associated with safety messages.

"Through education, we create awareness. Through awareness, people make informed choices about personal safety."
Rhona Beesley

Background
The idea of Oi came about after a fire drill for a Wellington apartment building failed. A building safety inspector conducted this fire drill, and found that many of the immigrant students living within the building did not evacuate. They were questioned on why they did not respond to the fire drill, and they said that they could not understand the written English within the fire notices. And so stayed in the building where they thought they would be safe.

Action Direction founder, Rhona Beesley, and her father (the building safety inspector) worked together to create a pictorial solution where pictures could be 'read' and understood by all nationalities. Other ideas such as displaying multiple languages were considered, but they were discarded after discovering that there are more than 45 different languages spoken in New Zealand. They worked closely with a Fire Service Safety Officer and an Emergency Management Officer from Wellington Greater Regional Council to ensure the Fire Action notice met all New Zealand Fire Service and the NZ Building Code requirements.

As the Fire Action notice developed, we realised the potential for creating a worldwide visual language. The use of pictures and simple English text meant that any message could be communicated to anyone. Understanding for all.

Rhona Beesley
I believe Oi came about from my long held fascination with simplistic design, combined with a love of Dutch design, and a spelling problem.

I'd been living in Amsterdam, and upon my return to New Zealand my father approached me with a communication challenge, where fire safety signs (in particular) had proved to be audience exclusive. We set out to create a solution using images instead of the existing literacy-reliant text.

I had some significant family influences in this task; my father is ex-New Zealand fire service, and an Independent Qualified Person (Building Safety Inspector). My mother is a psychotherapist, having conveyed to me, fairly early on the importance of using a positive language to get the right message across.

We worked alongside a Fire Safety Officer from the New Zealand Fire Service, and Emergency Management Officer from the Wellington Regional council to make sure the content within the Fire Action sign was the same, and adhered to all of the fire safety sign requirements. This began an ongoing relationship with the New Zealand fire service.

Growing up, I had a bit of a spelling problem, and subsequently, always used simple language because complex words were embarrassing to spell incorrectly. Ironically, this has really helped me in the creation of these signs. I understand the importance of simplicity, and, in this sense I identify with my audience, which is even more of a motivating factor. Because of my time living in Amsterdam I really came to understand the challenges faced by people living and working in a society that speaks a completely different language.

I hold a Bachelor of Computer Graphic Design. Design school taught me the value of simplicity when communicating a complex message.