Designed by John Berg, art director of Columbia/CBS Records, the album cover front features an album-cover-size black thumbprint on a white background, with the Chicago logo embedded in the whorls.

The album cover back also features an album-cover-size black fingerprint or thumbprint on white background, but without the embedded Chicago logo.

[10] To the record-buying public, Chicago's image was out of touch in 1980, and once the new album was released, it became clear that any attempt to win new fans would be in vain.

[11] Chicago XIV went unnoticed upon release and bombed, reaching only number seventy-one on the Billboard 200 chart in the US,[12] and disappeared quickly.

[citation needed] Realizing that the relationship had soured considerably, Columbia Records terminated their contract with Chicago with a buyout of approximately $2 million.

Especially after Jeff Wald, who managed us in 1978 and 1979, kind of bullied them into signing a ridiculous multimillion dollar contract where every time we delivered an album, they had to cough up a million bucks.

[17] In 2003, Chicago XIV was remastered and reissued by Rhino Records, with three outtakes from the sessions, "Doin' Business" (which first appeared on the 1991 4-Disc anthology Group Portrait), "Live It Up", and "Soldier of Fortune" as bonus tracks.