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It's a curious city.

Where WBEZ answers your questions about Chicago, the region, and its people.

Hi, I'm reporter Liz Stanton, and today we're talking signs, those colorful paper signs that hang in grocery store windows, that is.

If you've lived in Chicago for any stretch of time, you know the ones, big fat letters and bright colors.

They beckon you from the street to scoop up juicy

limes, sweet strawberries, or whatever's on sale this week. The signs look basic, even handmade.

That's one reason they fascinate Kathleen Rooney. I'm the kind of person who is attracted

to something that seems like it was made by another person and not just cranked out by a machine.

Kathleen takes epic walks across the city and passes sign after sign.

She wants to know who makes them.

When I'm walking around the city and I see one of these Chicago-style paper signs,

I imagine the person or a set of people who made it,

and I wonder how they learned to make them, why they do it

in that style. We'll get to the bottom of this and hopefully make that connection between the

signs and their makers. To start, a clarification. The signs you see at big-name grocery stores

like Jewel or Mariano's are usually large format digital prints.

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