The Designer Series is a set of articles dedicated to the people who bring color, light, architecture, ambiance, and sound to circus. Often they invent and construct in a shop, a studio, a tech booth — unobserved by the standard circus patron, yet essential to the circus experience. These professions exist in many art forms, but this series digs into what it means to be a circus designer and celebrates their contributions to the community. In this series I also aim to glean from my interviewees and share with my readers what it takes to start, develop, and succeed in a circus design career. Secondly, I wanted to hear — straight from the source — best practices for communication amongst production teams to both honor the expertise of circus designers and make the show creation process as smooth as possible.