From the avant-synth music scene in the 1970s and hip- hop scene of the 1980s, K.K Barrett broke onto the design scene with iconic music videos such as Beck’s New Pollution and the Smashing Pumpkins’ Tonight, Tonight, both of which earned him the MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction. He partnered with Spike Jonze to bring alive the world of Being John Malkovich. He’s since served as production designer on films such as Adaptation, Lost in Translation, and Where the Wild Things Are. Barrett was nominated for an Academy Award for Production Design for Spike Jonze’s film Her.
Barrett has also worked with David O. Russell on I Heart Huckabee’s, Michel Gondry on Human Nature, and played in the super universe with Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey. His extensive commercial experience includes spots for brands such as Nissan, GE, Levi’s, Budweiser and Audi. In the experiential and directing realm, he has adapted Kid Koala’s graphic novel Nufonia Must Fall, and co-created a show with Karen O called Stop the Virgens.
