One Chicago season art arrives with a few big surprises

One Chicago looks great in NBC’s new season artwork, but Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med fans may have noticed some surprises.

With the new One Chicago season a month away, NBC has released their latest artwork for the franchise—and there’s a lot that needs to be talked about.

The artwork looks great, and is a vast improvement over last season’s promo graphics. While the black backgrounds made everything last season look more dramatic, using more color this season makes the graphic pop off the screen.

The cast shots look better, too; having them all walking forward goes well with the whole “city of heroes” tagline that NBC has adopted, and it’s better than seeing various sized headshots like we had before.

Once you move past how awesome this is, though, there are a couple of things that are definitely unexpected. Scroll down to the bottom of this article to see the art for yourself, then look again as we point out a few things.

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First, each show has their own color again this year, but fans will notice the color scheme has changed. Last season Chicago Fire was orange, Chicago PD was blue and Chicago Med was red.

It worked out well, because orange is the color of flames, while blue and red are widely associated with police and emergency services respectively.

However, NBC has changed it this season. While Chicago PD is still blue, Chicago Fire has taken the red, and Chicago Med has now become green.

Red can also be used for firefighters, since it’s also a common color in firehouses in addition to its use in the medical profession.

But the change leaves Med in an odd spot, because green has no significant association with medicine whatsoever—and at least in this graphic, it’s close enough to the blue that they are too similar. If you look at the graphic quickly, you’d be forgiven for thinking both sides are the same color.

So it’s curious why NBC would make that change. Why not stick with a scheme that worked for all three shows, rather than change to one that only favors two?

But that’s an aesthetic decision. The bigger issue comes when you look at the actors featured in the artwork. The Chicago Med shot includes Colin Donnell and Norma Kuhling, even though they are no longer with the show.

The duo are making final guest appearances in the season premiere, so maybe NBC has them on the art thinking that they don’t want to spoil the characters’ exits. There’s one major problem with that logic though: their departures were publicly revealed in April. There isn’t a spoiler to protect as fans already know they’re gone.

And since this is the key art that will be used to promote the entire season, why put two actors on it (albeit in the back) that aren’t on the show past Sept. 25? It feels unnecessary and it means that the graphic will be inaccurate almost right away.

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Plus, look at Chicago Fire and you’ll see Kara Killmer as Sylvie Brett. So the spoiler logic is flawed; if that were the case, NBC wouldn’t put her on there—since the season is starting as Brett may be leaving Firehouse 51. Her presence on the poster invites speculation that she’s staying after all.

It’d be odd for the network to not want to spoil one thing that’s already been publicized, yet be fine with a potential spoiler for the one that fans don’t know.

Of course, this isn’t the first time NBC has faced this problem. Remember after season 5 when the key art for season 6 featured Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer), while the promos wanted viewers to think he might die?

Putting this key art together is harder than you think, especially since it has to work for the entire season—which makes it all the more surprising that they’ve made some of the choices they did. It looks awesome, though, and certainly gets you excited for Sept. 25!

One Chicago franchise 2019-2020 season key art featuring the casts of Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC. /

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