Alex McDowell (born 11 April 1955) is a British production designer and creative director working in narrative media.

Alex McDowell was born in Borneo, Malaysia, to British parents. His father, H Blair McDowell, was an engineer for Royal Dutch Shell, and his brother, Jonathan McDowell, is a London-based architect at Matter Films. He attended Quaker boarding schools from age 7 to 18.

McDowell studied fine art at the Central School of Art and Design in London. In 1975, he and Sebastian Conran staged the Sex Pistols’ first headline concert.^{[citation needed]} He then designed and printed T-shirts for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's King's Road shop Sex.^{[citation needed]} In 1978, he and musician Glen Matlock co-founded graphic studio Rocking Russian Design.^{[citation needed]} McDowell designed album covers for punk rock groups and musicians, including Rich Kids, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, and Iggy Pop.^[1]

In 1979, McDowell was commissioned to design Pop's Soldier album. He worked as a production designer on the music videos for Soldier.^{[citation needed]} In 1981, he co-founded the design studio Da Gama, alongside typographer and designer John Warwicker.^[2] He began to work with director Tim Pope, designing a series of videos for The Cure.^{[citation needed]} Pope and McDowell made a video with Depeche Mode at the Berlin Wall, with Queen in Munich, and Neil Young in California.^{[citation needed]} In 1986, McDowell moved to Los Angeles.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, he designed the sets for music videos, including artists like Madonna,^[3] Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, Aerosmith,^[4] and others. He worked at Limelight, where he designed and directed music videos, including "Paradise" (1988) for Nigerian singer Sade. He later worked at Propaganda Films, designing sets for Madonna's videos "Express Yourself", "Oh Father", and "Vogue", and commercials for companies like Levi's, Converse, Nike, Pepsi, Revlon, Sony, Coca-Cola, and Chanel.^{[citation needed]}

McDowell's first feature, The Lawnmower Man, featured use of virtual reality. Following this, he worked on The Crow (1994).

McDowell is a professor of cinema practice at the University of Southern California.^[5] McDowell was named the William Cameron Menzies endowed chair in Production Design in 2014.^[6] He directs the USC World Building Media Lab (WbML).^[7]

In October 2008, McDowell founded the World Building Institute.^[8] From 2007 to 2016, the World Building Institute hosted the Science of Fiction Festival every 18 months. Based on art-science projects, the event had approximately 300 participants each year ^{[citation needed]}. The World Building Institute has hosted workshops at the Berlin Film Festival and at the Berlinale Talents.^[9][10][11]

In 2002, McDowell won a San Diego Film Critics Society award in the Best Production Design category for his work on Minority Report and, in 2004, an Art Directors Guild award for Excellence in Production Design for The Terminal. ^{[citation needed]} In 2006, McDowell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA, a design society, and was appointed Visiting Artist at the MIT Media Lab. ^{[citation needed]} In April 2015, McDowell was awarded the BritWeek Business Innovation Award.^[33][34]

• Official website
• University of Southern California faculty page
• World Building Institute
• World Building Media Lab
• 5D GlobalStudio
• Alex McDowell at IMDb