One of the top production designers working in cinema today, award-winning international feature and television Production Designer Nelson Coates just completed designing Season 4 of The Morning Show with Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Billy Crudup, and John Hamm for AppleTV+. His designs for Season 3 were honored with EMMY® and ADG Awards nominations. Coates also designed one of the top five streamed movies of 2022 - Hocus Pocus 2 for Disney+ starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy. Coates received an ADG nomination for In The Heights, a feature adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning Broadway musical for Warner Bros & frequent collaborator director Jon M. Chu.
Nelson was awarded the Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award for his acclaimed designs for the feature adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s best-selling book Crazy Rich Asians, also for director Jon M. Chu. Coates’ work for that film received nominations for a Critic’s Choice Award (for which the film won Best Comedy), a Chicago Independent Film Critic’s Circle Award, and an Online Film & Television Assn. Award, among others and was featured in numerous publications, and in the HBO Max series One Perfect Shot. Coates and Chu also collaborated on the Netflix Ken Jeong Comedy special, You Complete Me, Ho, and on one of the inaugural series offerings from AppleTV+, Home Before Dark.
Coates’ designs also can be seen in director Mimi Leder’s On The Basis of Sex about the early career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her work combating gender discrimination. Prior to that, Coates designed _Fifty Shades Darke_r, and Fifty Shades Freed, re-conceiving original environments in addition to new designs for director James Foley & Universal - filming back to back in three countries and seven cities. Additional credits include such diverse films as School for Scoundrels, Aquamarine, Antwone Fisher. Between movie projects, Nelson designs real world projects as architect/interior designer for unique residential & commercial projects.
His design work has been featured multiple times in such publications as Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, BBC Style, and Entertainment Design Magazine, and has also been featured in exhibition at the Biennale Milano. Coates philanthropic work includes fundraising, consulting, and event organizing for numerous organizations including the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Laguna Art Museum, Hugh O’Brian Youth Foundation (HOBY), March of Dimes, Motion Picture & Television Fund, in addition to creating scholarships for various organizations. A member of the Designer Branch Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and member of the Television Academy, Coates speaks nationally & internationally, serves on the Board of Trustees of Laguna College of Art + Design, and served for 8.5 years as International President of the Art Directors Guild. The son of former ACU Professors Drs. Edward and Jane Coates, Nelson is a recipient of the ACU Outstanding Young Alumnus of the Year Award, the ACU JMC Dept. Gutenberg Award, and the 2021 recipient of the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council Lifetime Achievement Award.
