abbey ling thorley —
production design and visual strategy

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“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”
Alberto Giacometti

Contact
studio@abbeylings.com

@abbeylings

CV download here

Abbey Ling Thorley 方寧 is a Hong Kong-Australian production designer and art director, specialising in story-first visual worldbuilding for narrative film, documentary, and branding projects.

Abbey won an international Webby Award for Best Art Direction (People’s Voice, Film/TV) 2025 for the Powerhouse Museum’s short To Become A Lion (dir. David Ma, The Powerhouse Museum), which was acquired by both Nowness and New York Times Op-Docs. For her work on Eat Up! (dir. Yuxin Cao), she was nominated for Best Emerging Production Designer 2025 by the Australian Production Designers Guild.

The films she has production designed have garnered critical acclaim. The Eviction (dir. Rebecca Metcalf) was recently awarded Best Australian Short at Melbourne International Film Festival and also screened at Sydney Film Festival. Umbrella Entertainment’s’ short The Shirt Off Your Back (dir. David Robinson-Smith), featured in the core programming at MIFF and SFF. Agoge (dir. Ven Gialouris), premiered at Palm Springs International ShortFest. A Living Instrument (dir. Hyun Lee) was acquired for global streaming by Nowness.

Her broader art department experience includes working under Oscar-winning designers Colin Gibson and Jacinta Leong on Furiosa (Warner Bros), and on productions including Year Of (Stan), Who Do You Think You Are Australia (SBS/Warner Bros Discovery), and music videos for Ed Sheeran.

Her upcoming projects include feature film French Girls (dir. Hyun Lee, prod. Nash Edgerton & Georgia Noe), currently in post-production; and the shorts Spiders On My Lashline (dir. Grace Tan), So Beautiful (dir. Sofya Gollan), and Echo Point (dir. Adam Daniel).

Alongside her film work, Abbey consults independently as a branding art director, drawing on her previous background working at global consultancy Bain & Co.

Born in an old border town in Hong Kong and migrating to Australia in 2015, Abbey brings a cross-cultural sensitivity to her design work, and is fluent in English, Cantonese, and professional Mandarin. She holds an MA in Production Design from AFTRS, a GradDip in Environmental Science from the University of Sydney, and a BA in International Relations & Environmental Philosophy from Swinburne University (as a New Colombo Plan Scholar).

Abbey is an accredited member of the International Production Designers Collective and is available for projects internationally.

7. guardian angel (dir. charles olsen)