Pictorial warnings are intended to explain product dangers in a universal symbol or picture that can be universally understood even by people who cannot read or who speak and read a different language. Here we have a pictorial product announcement on the back of a rug indicating the company uses no child labor.

The test for a pictorial symbol is whether it communicates its intended message without textual explanation. So take away the “No Child Labor” words and what do you see? A “No Happy Children” warning.

Not quite sure why the manufacturer felt it necessary to include a pictorial symbol in the first place, unless universal pictorial warnings have been transmuted into marketing tools–which will further dilute their already limited utility as product-risk warnings.