Jay Burridge - Career

Career

He graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design with a degree in art, and in 1994 auditioned for the role as a presenter on the BBC children's art programme SMart. At his interview he met Mark Speight, and the two soon formed a strong friendship. Burridge and Speight were given the jobs of presenting SMart alongside Zoë Ball. Ball left, and was replaced by Josie D'Arby who was then replaced by Kirsten O'Brien and Lizi Botham in 1999. Together with O'Brien and Botham they fronted the SMart spin-off shows SMart on the Road and SMarteenies, as well as appearing at many other art-related events.

Together, Burridge and Speight created all of the art projects for each episode of SMart at Burridge's West London art studio. He noted: "We would bounce ideas and jokes off each other all day until we had developed an almost telepathically linked knowledge of what made each other laugh."

Burridge left SMart in 2003, feeling he had "outgrown role as a children's TV presenter," and wanted to move "out of the limelight". He worked as a commercial artist before becoming a producer for a TV company, as well as working as a graphic designer and snowboard inventor. He is the founder of the design company Laughing Boy and Lucky Seven, a hat company which specialises in crested baseball caps emblazoned with the logos of fictional companies from TV shows and films. The caps have been worn by people including Madonna and David LaChapelle.

Burridge directed the music video for the song "Inspired By" by The Brightlights and was art director on Hot Chip's "Boy from School" video, for which he won a Cads Music Vision Award. He also designed several large denim butterflies, which went on display on the streets of London, as part of an advertising campaign for Levi Strauss & Co.'s "Live Unbuttoned" 501 jeans. When Superstars Ruled the World, an exhibition by Burridge about dinosaurs, opened in 2010 at the Lazarides Gallery in Beverly Hills. In 2011, Burridge's piece, a full-sized unassembled airfix model of Ayrton Senna's McLaren MP4/6 Formula One car, sold at auction for €187,000. The piece had been on show at the "Remembering Ayrton Senna" exhibition.