2001 was a transition year for the publication of The Chicago Scene. Beginning in September 2001, the club experimented with printing a full color cover. Prior to that, all covers were two color and/or gray scale and all content was in gray scale.

Beginning with the November 2001 issue, the club went to a fully digital process that allowed the production of a PDF version and a full-color magazine. At first, only photographs and some advertisements were reproduced in color, but eventually the magazine shifted to a full color format for all pages.

Editions of The Chicago Scene prior to the November 2001 edition have been scanned from hard copy and converted to PDF.