Ghost sign documentation app for heritage groups
Ghost signs — faded painted advertisements on brick walls — disappear quietly: a new building goes up next door, a wall is rendered, or the paint simply weathers away. Heritage groups and local historians document them before that happens, recording the wording that can still be read, the advertiser, the likely period and how much of the sign survives. SurveyThanks gives each sign a register entry with its location, so a town’s survey can be built up over months by different volunteers and published as one illustrated report.
Built for heritage groups running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Sign documentation report
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Sign documentation report
Sign 017 — Rear wall, former produce store
- Location
- Laneway off Fictional Street (map pin recorded)
- Recorded
- 3 June 2026, overcast (even light)
- Visible from
- Public laneway; no access needed
| Aspect | Record | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Legible text | “…ROLLED OATS” / “SOLD HERE” | Note: Partial |
| Advertiser | Not legible; oats brand suspected from lettering | Note: Unknown |
| Paint survival | About 40% of the lettering field | Note: Fading |
| Threat | Adjacent lot has a development application lodged | Note: At risk |
Fields captured on site
Your firm builds the form in-app, so these are a starting point rather than a fixed schema. Every field is captured on the device, with or without signal, and lands in the sign documentation report where your template puts it.
Per sign
- Sign number
- Address and map pin
- Wall orientation
- Legible text transcription
- Advertiser and product
- Estimated period
Condition
- Percentage of lettering surviving
- Overpainting or render
- Obstruction by later buildings
- Known threats
- Photographs — full sign and details
How the sign documentation report gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the ghost sign documentation form in-app — 25 field types, nesting repeatable groups, compound AND/OR visibility rules, reusable modules and calculated fields. Field capture works with no signal: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio all queue in an idempotent outbox that only clears once the server confirms receipt.
Link it to your fabric elements and spaces
Enter fabric elements and spaces once, as a register. Every one of your condition observations across inspection rounds then points at a stored row rather than a name somebody typed — and the links survive a disconnected device.
Render your own template
The sign documentation report renders into the Word template you already use — your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with conditionals, loops over repeats, composable sub-templates and photo grids.
Reviewed before it leaves
You write the review framework: a checklist of what a sign documentation report must contain, plus the prose standards you would mark a junior against. Link it to a report template and it runs every time that template renders. Each finding comes back graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault, and a person accepts or dismisses every one.
Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review is a comparison rather than a proofread: The narrative says the verandah is stable; the condition record grades it poor and deteriorating.
Checks a heritage framework usually carries
- Every element in the schedule carries a condition grade and a photograph
- Change since the last inspection is stated element by element
- Recommendations are tied back to Burra Charter principles
- The significance assessment is consistent with the conservation management plan
Questions
- Can volunteers add signs without an account each?
- Each person filling in forms needs to be a member of your workspace. Roles can limit what they see, and their submissions all feed the same register.
- Can we publish the survey online rather than as a PDF?
- Reports can be delivered as a Word file, a PDF, or a web report shared by password-protected link.
- How do we avoid documenting the same sign twice?
- Signs are a register with map locations, so a volunteer can check the map for existing pins before adding one, and a repeat visit links to the existing sign rather than creating a new record.
What this is not
Worth knowing before you book a demo, so neither of us wastes the half hour.
- Not field-service dispatch. No timesheets, no parts, no inventory. Scheduling exists to get an inspector to a site.
- No signature capture. If your deliverable has to carry a signed sign-off on the artefact itself, this is not the tool yet.
- Field capture is what works offline — jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio. Reports, chat, scheduling and the inbox need a connection.
- No client portal. Reports go out as a file or a password-protected link.
Other heritage work we cover
- Archaeological site monitoringSite monitoring report
- Heritage building condition surveysConservation condition report
- Historic cemetery surveysGrave condition survey
- Indigenous heritage surveysCultural heritage report
- Museum object condition reportsObject condition report
- Rock art condition monitoringRock art condition report
- Shipwreck site inspectionsWreck site report
- Statue and monument auditsMonument condition register
Other disciplines
Rebuild your sign documentation report in SurveyThanks
Bring the Word template you already send clients. If you are coming off another field-forms tool, a filled report can be uploaded, read field by field, and re-rendered into your template.