Inspired by a Cirque du Soleil performance, Polish newspaper designer Jacek Utko set out to do for newspapers what the Montreal troupe did for the circus.

“These guys took some creepy, run-down entertainment and put it to the highest possible level of performance art. I thought ‘Oh my God, maybe I can do the same with these boring newspapers. And I did, we started to redesign them one by one.”

The papers he revamped won awards and their circulation numbers made spectacular gains as well.

Utko thinks good design can change the fate of a newspaper and in this video from Ted.com, he explains how.

“You can live in a small, poor country, like me. You can work for a small company, in a boring branch. You can have no budgets, no people — but still you can put your work to the highest possible level. And everybody can do it. You just need inspiration, vision and determination. And you need to remember that to be good is not enough.”