Jobs / Design, media, and writing / 27-1027.00
Set and Exhibit Designers
Design special exhibits and sets for film, video, television, and theater productions. May study scripts, confer with directors, and conduct research to determine appropriate architectural styles.
- US jobs
- 10,630
- Median wage
- $75,240 a year
- Job family
- Design, media, and writing
Can agents do the work of set and exhibit designers?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Design, media, and writing:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. OSWorld-Verified includes tasks in image, slide, and document apps, and the best agent passes 90.2% of all its computer tasks. No task-level benchmark in our collection scores the quality of design or writing work.
- Project levelNot yetOn the Remote Labor Index, which includes graphic design, video, 3D, audio, and web projects from freelance platforms, the best agent completed 15.8% of projects to a standard a client would accept. GDPval deliverables score higher (84.9% wins or ties against professionals, reported by OpenAI), but those tasks are one-shot and fully specified.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in design, media, and writing, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Develop set designs, based on evaluation of scripts, budgets, research information, and available locations.
- Prepare rough drafts and scale working drawings of sets, including floor plans, scenery, and properties to be constructed.
- Prepare preliminary renderings of proposed exhibits, including detailed construction, layout, and material specifications, and diagrams relating to aspects such as special effects or lighting.
- Read scripts to determine location, set, and design requirements.
- Submit plans for approval, and adapt plans to serve intended purposes, or to conform to budget or fabrication restrictions.
- Attend rehearsals and production meetings to obtain and share information related to sets.
- Confer with clients and staff to gather information about exhibit space, proposed themes and content, timelines, budgets, materials, or promotion requirements.
- Research architectural and stylistic elements appropriate to the time period to be depicted, consulting experts for information, as necessary.
- Observe sets during rehearsals in order to ensure that set elements do not interfere with performance aspects such as cast movement and camera angles.
- Collaborate with those in charge of lighting and sound so that those production aspects can be coordinated with set designs or exhibit layouts.
- Select set props, such as furniture, pictures, lamps, and rugs.
- Design and build scale models of set designs, or miniature sets used in filming backgrounds or special effects.
Other job titles for this occupation (30)
Designer · Display Coordinator · Exhibit Coordinator · Exhibit Designer · Exhibit Preparator · Historical Society Window Dresser · Installations Designer · Projection Designer · Scenic Designer · Set Designer · Creator · Display Designer · Event Decorator · Event Designer · Exhibit Specialist · Exhibit Technician (Exhibit Tech) · Exhibitions Coordinator · Exhibitor · Exhibits Manager · Exhibits Specialist · Food Stylist · Lighting Designer · Miniature Set Designer · Museum Exhibit Designer · Presentation Specialist · Room Designer · Set Decorator · Stage Scenery Designer · Stage Set Designer · Theater Set Production Designer