A thank-you for your sign-writing and ghost sign heritage volunteers: a photo of a faded advert on a brick wall, a gilded shopfront letter or a signwriter's hand at the mahl stick as a jigsaw

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any sign-writing guild or association, ghost sign survey or archive, civic society, conservation trust, sign-painting school, paint, brush or gold-leaf supplier, museum, council, heritage body, heritage funder, sponsor, school or community organisation. Nothing here is legal, historical, conservation, planning, ladder safety, working at height, road safety, chemical safety, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice; check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, walls, ladders, children and people's details.

It's a bright Sunday morning on a side street in an old market town, and a small group with clipboards and phones is standing on the pavement opposite a tall brick wall. High up, between two windows, there are faded letters: a cream band, the ghost of a red border, and the words "PURE COCOA" and "GROCER & TEA DEALER" in shapes that are hard to make out until somebody points. A retired teacher called Ruth is leading the walk. "Look at the serifs," she says. "That was painted freehand, by someone standing on a plank, probably about 1910." She holds up an old photograph from the town archive: the same wall, the letters bright, a horse and cart below. The group gasps a little. Later that afternoon, in a borrowed shop unit around the corner, another volunteer, Kwame, is running a beginners' sign-writing taster. He steadies his brush hand on a mahl stick and pulls a long, clean stroke of paint into the curve of a letter S, and the six people watching go quiet. Neither of them is paid. The walk and the workshop happen because they turn up.

If you want to say thank you to people like Ruth and Kwame, this is a guide to doing it well, with or without a puzzle.

Who we mean

Sign-writing and ghost sign heritage is kept alive by many kinds of volunteers: the signwriters and tutors who teach the craft of the brush, the surveyors and recorders who photograph and map faded wall adverts before they disappear, the guides who lead heritage walks, the archive volunteers who match old photographs and trade directories to the signs, the conservation helpers who work with owners and specialists on the rare signs that are carefully stabilised, the education volunteers who run school sessions on lettering, the event helpers at open days and craft fairs, the front-desk and shop volunteers, and the trustees and founders who started a survey, a society or a small sign-writing workshop. Some belong to civic societies; some are a loose group of people who love old lettering; some help at museums that keep old shop fascias and enamel signs. This guide is for all of them.

Words first

Before anything else, write what you want to say. The best thank-yous are specific: the walk where your daughter spotted a ghost sign nobody had noticed, the way someone explained why the letters were painted in a certain order, the time a volunteer found your great-grandfather's shop name in an old directory and then on a wall. A gift is a way of carrying those words; it is not a substitute for them.

Ladders, roads and walls come first

Ghost signs are often high up, on busy streets or on private buildings, and sign-writing uses ladders, solvents, paints and sometimes gold leaf. If you take a photo, do it from the pavement or a safe public spot, never step into the road, climb, lean out of a window or go onto private property without permission, and never distract someone on a ladder or holding a loaded brush. Follow what the walk leader or tutor tells you about traffic, children, ventilation and where to stand. A good photo is never worth an accident.

The letters that sold a town

Before printed posters and plastic signs were everywhere, much of the lettering in a town was painted by hand. Signwriters painted shopfront fascias, gilded glass windows, carts and vans, pub signs, fairground and canal decorations, and huge advertisements on gable walls for soap, tea, cocoa, flour, tobacco, bicycles and boots. Painters worked on planks and ladders, often freehand, using lead-based paints that soaked into the brick and outlasted the shops they advertised. As printing, vinyl and illuminated signs took over, the trade shrank dramatically. The faded wall adverts that remain, often called ghost signs, are a kind of street archive, and the volunteers who record them, and the signwriters who keep the craft alive, help people read their towns again.

An honest word about the past

Heritage is not only nostalgia, and good volunteers know it. Signwriters worked at height in all weathers, with real risks from falls and from the lead in their paints. Many painters' names were never recorded, and apprentices often started young on low pay. Some ghost signs advertise things we now see very differently, like tobacco, patent medicines that promised impossible cures, or products tied to colonial trade, and a few carry wording or images that are offensive today. There are also real questions about who decides which signs are kept, repainted or allowed to fade, and about respecting the owners of the buildings they're on. A thank-you doesn't need to cover any of this, but it helps to know that the people you're thanking often carry these stories carefully.

When to send it

The end of the walking season, after a heritage open day or a lettering festival, the day a survey reaches a milestone, a school "our high street then and now" week, the anniversary of the society or workshop being founded, or when a long-serving volunteer hangs up their clipboard or their brushes for the last time.

Why a jigsaw can fit

A photo jigsaw gives someone a picture of what they made possible, and a few quiet minutes to look at it piece by piece. Lettering makes wonderful puzzle subjects: a faded painted advert on a brick wall, a freshly gilded shopfront letter catching the sun, a signwriter's hand at the mahl stick, a jar of brushes and pots of enamel on a bench, a hand-painted van, or the old archive photograph of a wall next to the same wall today. The note appears when the last piece clicks in, so your words are the last thing they see.

For the signwriters and tutors

These are the volunteers beginners remember: the person who shows how to load a brush, how to steady a hand on the mahl stick and how to pull a clean stroke. Some trained in the trade decades ago; some learned later and teach to keep the craft alive. A photo of a sign they painted, or the board from a workshop where you learned your first letter, can mean a lot. A note that names one thing you learned, such as "I never knew the brush was turned through the curve", tells them it landed.

For the surveyors and recorders

Someone walks the back streets in every season, photographs each faded sign, notes the street, the wording and the condition, and adds it to a map or archive before it's painted over or the building is pulled down. Their work is patient and often invisible. A photo of a sign they recorded, perhaps one that has since been lost, tells them you saw the care behind the survey.

For the guides

Guides turn a wall into a story: who owned the shop, what cocoa cost, why the letters were shaded on one side. A note that repeats one of their stories back to them shows that it stuck.

For the archive volunteers

Somebody spent evenings matching trade directories, old postcards and newspaper adverts to faded letters on a wall. Somebody scanned a signwriter's sketchbook donated by his family. These volunteers give the signs their names and dates. A puzzle of an archive photograph, used with permission, can be a lovely way to thank them, as long as the image is theirs to share.

For the conservation helpers

On the rare occasions when a ghost sign is carefully stabilised, it usually takes owners, specialists and volunteers working together, with a lot of patience and paperwork. A photo of the sign afterwards, taken from the street, is a quiet way to say that the effort was worth it.

For the education volunteers

A school session on lettering, where children trace letters, design their own shop sign or spot ghost signs on a walk, takes a lot of preparation. A class thank-you, perhaps a child's own painted sign turned into a small puzzle, can go back to the volunteers who ran it. Check your school's photo rules first.

For the event volunteers

Open days, lettering festivals and heritage weekends need people to set up tables, hand out maps, keep walkers safe at crossings and pack everything away in the rain. A photo of a busy workshop table on the day, with permission from anyone recognisable, says thank you for the whole effort.

For the front-desk and shop volunteers

They welcome everyone, sell the maps and postcards, explain the walk times for the fifth time and keep the kettle going. They are often the first and last face a visitor sees. A short, specific note about how they made your visit easy goes a long way.

For the trustees and the founders

Somebody noticed that the old signs were disappearing, started photographing them, called a meeting in the library and built a survey, a society or a little workshop. A photo of a sign the group recorded, or the workshop on a busy evening, can be a moving thank-you for the people who made that difference.

When a long-serving volunteer steps down

For someone who has led walks or taught lettering for twenty years, a larger puzzle with a meaningful photo, such as their favourite ghost sign or a board they painted, gives them something to spend time with. Ask the group whether others would like to add their names to the note.

In memory of a volunteer

If the group has lost a much-loved signwriter or volunteer, a puzzle for their family with a photo of their work, or of a sign they cared about, can be a gentle gift. Ask the family first, keep the note simple, and understand if they would prefer something else.

Not just in one country

Hand-painted lettering is heritage almost everywhere. There are ghost sign surveys and sign-writing groups across Britain and Ireland, faded wall adverts recorded in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the fileteado porteño tradition of Buenos Aires, recognised as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO, hand-painted shop and truck lettering across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, painted signboards in West Africa, and brush-lettered shop signs in Hong Kong and Japan. Wherever you are, the words "thank you for helping us read our streets again" translate.

Photo ideas and consent

• a faded painted advert on a brick gable wall
• a freshly gilded shopfront letter catching the sun
• a signwriter's hand at the mahl stick, mid-stroke
• a jar of brushes and pots of enamel on a bench
• a hand-painted van or cart
• an archive photograph of a wall beside the same wall today
• a group on a walk, looking up, taken with permission
• a child's own painted shop sign

Ask the people in the photo before you use it, and ask the building owner, group or archive before using photos of private property, collections or archive material. Keep visitors, children, records and anyone's details out of the frame, and remember that a memorial or a family photo may be private to the people it belongs to.

Getting the JPG right

Use a JPG, sharp and well lit. Faded signs are subtle, so photograph them in soft, even daylight rather than harsh sun, stand as square to the wall as you safely can, and zoom in rather than walking into the road. For workshop photos, sit near a window and hold the phone steady. A single bold letter makes an easier puzzle; a whole faded wall makes a harder but satisfying one. Crop to the part that matters.

Privacy and an optional PIN

Puzzlify puzzles are private links. You can add an optional PIN so only the person you send it to can open it. Photos aren't used to train AI and aren't shared with third parties.

Say it's from you

Put your name, or your family's, in the note at the end so they know who sent it. A puzzle that ends with "from the Year 6 class who now spot ghost signs everywhere" is a thank-you, not a mystery.

Piece counts

How to send it

Make the puzzle, write the note, publish the link, and send it by email or message, or print the link as a QR code inside a card. The recipient doesn't need an account or an app; it plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

Note examples

• "Thank you for every Sunday walk, for years."
• "We found Grandad's shop on that wall because of you. Thank you."
• "You taught me my first letter, and I haven't stopped since. Thank you."
• "We'll never walk down the high street without looking up again. From all of us, thank you."

Honest pricing

The preview is free, so you can see how it looks before deciding anything. Publishing the link costs one credit (€3.99), or less per puzzle with a bundle. It's a digital puzzle, not a printed one, so nothing arrives in the post. If a card and a few sentences feel like enough, they are.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

• a handwritten card, perhaps with your best attempt at a hand-lettered "thank you"
• a short message to the group's coordinator naming the volunteer, so it reaches them
• a donation to the society or workshop in their name, perhaps towards brushes or the survey
• an offer of your own time: the walks, the map stall, the archive or a workshop evening
• an old photograph of a local shopfront, offered to the archive if they'd like it

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose the wall, the letter, the hand or the brushes, take it safely with permission, keep children, visitors and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who pulls the clean stroke, who records the fading letters, and who teaches a whole town to look up, one letter, one piece at a time.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, historical, conservation, planning, ladder safety, working at height, road safety, chemical safety, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, bereavement, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice. Check your own group's guidance on gifts, photos, walls, ladders, children and people's details.