With musician Glen Matlock, he founded graphic studio Rocking Russian Design in 1978, which is where Neville Brody started his career.

[1] McDowell designed album covers for punk rock groups and musicians, including Rich Kids, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, and Iggy Pop.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, he designed the sets for over one hundred music videos, including artists like Madonna,[4] Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, Aerosmith,[5] and others.

He moved from the production company Limelight, where he designed and directed music videos, including "Paradise" (1988) for Nigerian singer Sade to the Propaganda Films, co-owned by director David Fincher.

McDowell worked for a year with Fincher, 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.

Beginning with The Crow in 1994, McDowell began production design for feature films, working with directors like Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1998) and again with David Fincher for Fight Club (1999).

[10] The lab worked to develop a new visual language for molecular biology, expressed in the World in a Cell, a funded partnership with the USC Bridge Institute.