Jabarkan Design dari Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events dalam bahasa melayu

Silberling, production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood all aimed for the film's setting to be ambiguous, giving it a "timeless" feel. Heinrichs also added steampunk designs to the period.  To contribute to the setting, Silberling hired Emmanuel Lubezki as the cinematographer because he was impressed with the trio's work on Sleepy Hollow.

Lubezki compared the cinematic similarities to Sleepy Hollow, notably the monochromatic look of both films. He also choose a specific color palette backdrop for A Series of Unfortunate Events. "The story is very episodic, so we picked a different color scheme for each section. For example," Lubezki continued, "Count Olaf’s house has a lot of greens, blacks and grays; the house of Uncle Monty has a lot of greens and browns and a bit of yellow; and the house of Aunt Josephine has blues and blacks." The railroad crossing set was constructed on a cyclorama, which was the most ambitious setpiece for the art department on using elements of "in house" special effects and matte paintings.

Robert D. Yeoman replaced Lubezski as cinematographer when Lubezski had to leave the production to commit to The New World. Yeoman mostly worked on the expansive harbor set at Downey. The art direction was inspired by The Night of the Hunter, which also influenced Handler for the writing of his books. Atwood commented that the Mr. Poe character was based on Edward Gorey paintings.