Caution Book

Caution Exhibition Process

CAUTION: MAULING MAY OCCUR

CAUTION: DAZZLINGLY DANGEROUS

Concept:
The juxtaposition of circus culture with caution sign aesthetics to highlight the danger involved with everyday activities in daily circus life.

Possible Gift Shop merchandise:
Vinyl Toys
Stuffed Black and Yellow Elephants
Build a Circus Bear
Bear Paw Gloves
Elephant Slippers
Posters
Videos
Shirts
Peanuts

Exhibit:
Videos
Photos
X-rays
Tightrope (working and broken items)
Trapeze Set (working and broken items)
Lion Tamer Whip
Clothing of Performers (Preferably with gashes from animals)

Opening and Closing Night- A demonstration of a trapeze act at full scale to show height. Black leotards to tie in with graphic work

Possible Concepts for Circus Exhibition

1. Animal Cruelty
Possible Title- Life Behind Bars
Description- Clang! These animals are sentenced to life behind bars.

2. Dangers in Circus Life
Possible Title- Dazzlingly Dangerous!
Description- Bears, heights, and broken bones. In the circus bodily harm is right around the trapeze net.

3. Development of Circus Acts
Possible Title- The Show Must Go On.
Description- The twists and turns of the circus through time.

4. Circus Seen Through Pop Culture
Possible Title- Would you like to Spectaclarize That?
Description- From Ronald to Dumbo the Influence of the circus on popular culture.

Final Circus Information Graphs

For this project I kept the same mind set as my book and icons. The graphs are both clean and sophisticated, instead of displaying this information in a crazy cliche circus theme.  I am focusing on the dedication and life of a circus employee as opposed to what a circus goer would see. To keep my graphs in tune with the icons I relied on the same color palette. This palette, because of its color associations, ties in with traditional circus aesthetics.

Circus Information Graphics Process

People Killed by Elephants Annually:

Height Comparisons:

Circus Development Through Time:

Ticket Price Comparison:

Lupton on Diagrams and The Numbers Man

After reading these two articles I noticed the examples given were not only highly complex but they were also extremely smooth in how they were read. In these readings I saw a correlation with the current information graphics assignment. The data collected dictated the form of the graphic.  This is probably why the graphics were easy to read since their layout seemed so natural. Forcing graphics into a layout or form that doesn't suit it could cause confusion on the part of the viewer.

Information Graphic Find & Share

I chose this information graphic to share because it combines its factual information with the road image to become a functional time line.  It also adds more detailed information about why this occurs with the funnel graphics. This added detail takes the graphic from being super simple to looking more filled and complete.  Without this the road graphic would look too simple and possibly wouldn't be strong enough to stand on its own.

Circus Information

Temporal:

• 1768 - Philip Astley offers horsemanship displays in a ring, with variety acts

1825 - first record of a Big Top in use

• 1815 - Elephants and menageries added as sideshow attractions

1831 - wild animals actually perform in the show

• Ringling circus starts in 1884

Merged with Barnum & Bailey circus in 1919 to become "Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows"

Spatial:

• First circuses started in London, England. Ringling Bros. started in Baraboo, Wisconsin

• most flying trapeze acts are performed between 20 and 40 feet above the ground.

• Typical oval-style circus tents come in a size of 118 by 150 feet, though some can reach sizes of 500 feet

Quantitative:

• 18 % of the population visited a circus, street festival or carnival in 2000

• Ringling has a single elephant incident: the death of a trainer at the company's elephant farm. Wild elephants kill 50-225 people annually in Africa

• Ringling tickets today range from 27 to 298 dollars. In 1895 a ticket for a show in Wichita Kansas ran 50 cents for adults. Children 12 and under were half off.

Sources:

http://www.naiaonline.org/about/animalactivists.htm

http://www.circusarts.org.uk/about-circus/index.php

http://www.ticketsnow.com/ringling-bros-bb-circus-tickets/?gcid=S16598x073-thpz_ring&keyword=ringling%20tickets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/historian77/3049859110/

http://www.elephantcare.org/humanele.htm

http://www.jugglenow.com/circus-history.html

Final color icons

Through this project I have been showing my circus culture in a clean and sophisticated fashion. I am portraying the reality of life in the circus and not the garish, cartoonish design that it is usually seen while visiting the circus as a spectator.  

To keep my icons legible I simplified them down to what was needed while keeping certain markers that would clue the viewer into the subject matter.  My color choice and placement of color was also used to highlight the important markers in my icons.

Cohesion was kept through my set by setting up rules that I used throughout my icons.  All of the icons have an area where the negative space flows into the positive space and adds more detail into the icon itself.  Keeping a consistent weight was important so I chose to have all icons be vertical.  Directionally I kept all icons facing the right.

2 Color Icon Set:

Single Color Icons:

Progression of the trapeze icon: