February 11, 2025

JumpDay: The World of Tim Burton at Design Museum

At Jump, we host real-life team-bonding events every two months to stay connected beyond our remote work setup.

Our very first JumpDay took place in October 2022 at The Design Museum for the Sneakers Unboxed exhibition.

For JumpDay No.25 (!), we came full circle, returning to The Design Museum – this time to step into the wonderfully weird and beautifully dark World of Tim Burton.

Over four decades, Burton has delivered iconic films like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Batman Returns, to name just a few. His signature gothic style, ghoulish characters, and imaginative storytelling have cemented his legacy in cinema and beyond.

The exhibition is packed-full with Burton’s distinctive artistry—sketches, paintings, and scribbled ideas dating back to his childhood, including a cartoon book he once submitted to Disney. The reply letter is appropriately impressed with his work.

There are puppets, props, models and costumes from a vast range of his films. It was a thrill to stand face-to-face with the real Jack Skellington, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Batman Returns catsuit (which she had to be sewn into!), and to admire costumes from Netflix’s Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega.

The Design Museum says on its website:

“This major exhibition invites visitors into his world through an exploration of the design of his unique aesthetic. While most well-known for his cinematic work, this show displays the full extent of his production as an illustrator, painter, photographer and author, as well as exploring key collaborations with designers. As a multi-disciplinary artist, his creations extend beyond the limits of mediums and formats.

Drawn from Tim Burton’s personal archive and representing the artist’s creative output from childhood to the present day, this collection of drawings, paintings, photographs, sketchbooks, moving-image works, sculptural installations, set and costume design focuses on the recurrent visual themes and motifs found in the distinctive characters and worlds found in Burton’s art and films.”

After soaking in Burton’s universe, the Jump team headed to The Britannia, an excellent nearby pub, to chat about the exhibition over burgers and pints.

Mark Fairless, our resident Burton expert, won our Tim Burton-themed quiz and walked away with a copy of the exhibition book – Tim Burton: Designing Worlds.

Mark Fairless – Animator at Jump:

“It was really great to see lots of Burton’s artwork up close, seeing that stuff in real life just brings a whole new dimension to it from the texture of the paper to the brush strokes and pencil marks.

My highlight though was definitely the props and maquettes from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Mars Attacks… just sublime craftsmanship, shame they couldn’t come home with me.”