Relics & Roots: An Interview with Right Way Signs
A father-and-son sign company reflects on preserving traditional craftsmanship while embracing new technology in a changing industry.
As collectors pull deep from their pockets to buy signs, let’s not forget the businesses that were commissioned to make these pieces. Many of the producers of these signs were small operations scattered throughout the United States, running on the help of members of their family and community.
Some sign companies have lasted decades, and even centuries, under family ownership. As time passes and parents retire, their children step into their roles, and the technology used to produce their signs changes. Not only are these companies based around heritage, but also evolution.
Such is the case with Chicago-based Right Way Signs, which has made some of the most recognizable signs in the city. The business is inspired by the work of sign artist Ches Perry, whose face is the business’s logo and is the father of Right Way Signs owner Alex Perry.
To know more about running a legacy signage company that has gone from hand-painted to digital, Kovels Antique Trader interviewed Alex of Right Way Signs.
Kovels Antique Trader (KAT): How did your company get its start?
Alex Perry (AP): Right Way Signs started in 2012, but the real story starts long before that. My father, Ches, has been hand-painting signs since 1970. He trained at the Institute of Lettering & Design in Chicago, honed his craft at Northwest Showcards in Chicago, and in 1980 bought Brownie Signs in Evanston—a shop that had been lettering storefronts, grocery store signs, and serving Northwestern University since 1936. Through the ’70s and ’80s, he ran a crew of painters doing work all over Chicagoland by hand.
Then the computer-generated signage era hit. By the early ’90s, vinyl and digital printing had taken over, and hand-lettering was written off as a lost art. We sold the business in 2005, and he stayed on as an employee, mostly cutting vinyl, but missing sign painting. I’d worked alongside him from 2000 to 2005 before going into a different career, but I never forgot watching him work.
In 2012, I started Right Way as a side project, really just so my dad could get back to his roots. The idea was simple: he’d paint, I’d run the operation. Three months in, it took off, and there was no turning back. The fact that it’s a father-and-son business isn’t a marketing line for us—it’s the whole identity. The name itself, “Right Way,” comes from something Dad always believed: there’s a right way to do things and a wrong way (both in sign making and the way you treat your staff, clients, vendors, and partners. That standard came from him, and it’s the thing the company is built around.
KAT: What has been passed down in your company?
AP: The most literal thing passed down is the craft itself—the lettering. My father learned brush lettering, layout, spacing, and gold leaf the old way, and those are skills you can’t shortcut or download. He’s spent more than 50 years refining them, and he teaches the painters and apprentices who come through our studio the same way he was taught: by hand, by eye, with a lot of patience. A lot of what he knows isn’t written anywhere; it lives in the doing.
The deeper inheritance, though, is a philosophy. Dad built his reputation on doing right by people and never cutting corners, even when it would’ve been easier or cheaper. That became our north star. We say it plainly: we’re not really a sign business; we’re a people business. Satisfied customers come back and refer others, and that’s the whole engine. The awards and the big-name clients are nice, but the principle underneath them is the one my father handed down—do the work the right way, treat people right, and the rest follows.
Peruse articles featuring collectible signage:
