Creative Director & Designer: Kato Trofimova (Hey Kato Studio)

Recircus is a conceptual visual identity developed for a sub-brand of Upsala Circus — a European contemporary circus organisation operating at the intersection of performance art, theatre, and social practice.

The project began as a question: what does a circus look like when it refuses its own clichés? Rather than inheriting the visual vocabulary of traditional circus — its spectacle, nostalgia, and theatrical excess — Recircus was conceived as a new visual territory. One that is experimental, culturally grounded, and built from the inside out.

The identity system is structured around a vocabulary of micro-illustrations — a set of symbols drawn from the internal language, values, and collective memory of the team. Each mark carries meaning specific to the people and practice it represents. Together, they form a modular graphic system that behaves like a living language: the elements can be recombined, scaled, and recontextualised across formats without losing coherence or intent.