More than 70 designers and design associates have been nominated for the 2026 Australian Production Design Guild (APDG) Awards, competing for awards in 19 categories for outstanding designers in feature film, television, live performance and events.
The nominees for production design for a feature film category are Steven Jones-Evans for Anaconda, Vanessa Cerne for Bring her Back, Bethany Ryan for Jimpa and Nicholas Dare for Together. Jones-Evans also received two production design nominations in the commercials category for the Life360 ‘Elevator’ & ‘Fridge’ and Telstra ‘The Girl & Ghost’ campaigns.
Nominees in the new costume supervision category are Kelly Foreman for Goolagong, Justine Baker for Kangaroo and Rachel Nott for The Bluff. The Bluff also picked up a nomination in the hair, make-up and prosthetic make-up category, for Lesley Vanderwalt and her team.
Other nominees in the category were Nick Nicolaou, Paul Katte, Rebecca Buratto and Larry Van Duynhoven for Bring her Back and Jason Baird and Hayley Atherton for We Bury the Dead.
In costume design Vanessa Loh, Steph Hooke, and Gypsy Taylor all received two nominations – Loh for the television production Watching You and the feature film Last Breath; Hooke for the feature film Saccharine and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard ‘Grow Wings and Fly’ film clip in the short form category; and Taylor for the television category All her Fault and the design for a commercial category, the Kleenex ‘Go With Confidence’campaign.
Heather Wallace for Wolfram and Anna Cahill for Bring her Back were also nominated for costume design for a feature film, while Terri Lamera for Run and Rita Carmody for Sunny Nights are the other nominees for costume design for a television production category.
The Artful Dodger Season 2 dominated the television categories, picking up four nominations, by Nicholas Dare (Production Design), Carlo Crescini and Kate Rawlins (Art Direction), Louise Galligan (Set Decoration) and Nadia King (Graphic Design).
This was closely followed by The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which picked up three nominations – Anthea Hodge and Lauren Wild (Art Direction), Beverley Dunn (Set Decoration) and Anna McEwan (Graphic Design).
Apple Cider Vinegar, All Her Fault and Good Cop Bad Copall received two nominations: Production Designer Melinda Doring and Graphic Designer Bowen Ellames for Apple Cider Vinegar;Costume Designer Gypsy Taylor and Graphic Designer Jacqui Schofield for All Her Fault; and Production Designer Matt Putland and Set Decorator Justine Dunn for Good Cop Bad Cop.
Emma Fletcher was nominated for The Twelve Season 3 in the production design for a television series and Michael Leon for Playing Gracie Darling in set decoration. In art direction, Kate Saunders and Michael Rumpf picked up a nomination for War Machine and Callum Webster for The Last of Us Season 2. In concept art, Daniel J Burns received two nominations, for Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 and Play Dirty, and Eugenie Oh for Beast of War.
Production Designer Virginia Mesiti received a commercials nomination for Rugby World Cup ‘Go All Out’. Short form nominees include Josephine Wagstaff for Coke Studio Music Videos, Nathan Andrew Evans for Collect Call and Charles Davis for Writers in Love.
This year’s emerging design screen nominees are production designers Tejal Gupta for Mirror of the Evening, Sophie Blanch for Mum’s New Boyfriend, Rikkili Clark for The Lounge and Erin Mackellin for Westgate.
APDG President Fiona Donovan said that the APDG Awards acknowledged the extraordinary dedication, artistry, and vision of the Australian production design community.
‘We are very excited to be returning to Melbourne to celebrate the work of our talented designers,’ she said. ‘Congratulations to all the nominees, who transform spaces into worlds and develop characters through costume. Designers are the heartbeat of our industry.’
Winners will be announced at the Meat Market in North Melbourne on 22 August.
