An Emmys feature examines how production designers on nominated genre series—including "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," "Fallout" and "Spider-Noir"—balanced faithfulness to established source material with the need to create fresh, distinctive visual worlds for television. With an unusually high number of fantasy and genre shows breaking into this year's Emmy race, designers described the challenge of satisfying passionate existing fan bases while making the series accessible to new viewers encountering the stories for the first time.

"Spider-Noir" designer Warren Alan Young built a 1930s noir New York for the Nicolas Cage-led series, adapted from a 2009 comic, filming largely on Los Angeles backlots and taking cues from classics such as "The Maltese Falcon." The show's format, viewable in both black-and-white and colour, required extensive testing of textures and materials alongside a custom camera filter, with a Rockefeller Center construction set among the toughest builds. "Fallout," based on the video game franchise, expanded its scope for season two by relocating the action to a 2296-set New Vegas, and was notable for filming locally in Los Angeles despite the region's ongoing production downturn, having shot its first season in New York.