Pre-production
The set design was done by production designer Patrice Vermette. Vermette based the set design for Dune by the need "to ground the story into realistic settings to help the audience believe in the extraordinary elements". He sought to make the sets as realistic and immersive as possible, using minimal set extensions and no greenscreens. Prior to the creation of any sets or visual effects, Villeneuve and a group of specific people, worked together to define the visual language for the film.
Vermette created a "visual bible" to guide the development of set design and keep it consistent with the film's visual effects design, intending to help "extrapolate the world". He also re-read the novel, as he felt that "the book gives a lot of clues or cues that will help you navigate it to design things, but it's quite nonspecific", adding that he wanted to support Villeneuve's original vision of the novel when he read it as a young teenager, and base the design around Herbert's original novel. The team's early mood boards for the visual language of the film consisted of Mesopotamian ziggurat architecture, Egyptian references, World War II bunkers, Brazilian and Soviet brutalist architecture, minimalist megastructures and dams designed by Superstudio, and imagery of glaciers taking over mountains.
The design for the ornithopters was conceived by Villeneuve and storyboard artist Sam Hudecki. Villeneuve wanted the ornithopter to be "muscular"; he wanted it to resemble a dragonfly and helicopter, but also appear realistic and adhere to basic laws of science. This fit in with his overall perception of the Dune world being retro-futuristic and analog. He also wanted the cockpits to be designed so that the actors could see the landscape. Two functional ornithopter models, 48- and 75-feet long, were created for filming by London propmakers, with operable doors and interior cockpit areas. They weighed over 11 tons and required an Antonov cargo plane to transport them to filming locations in Hungary and Jordan. One ornithopter used in filming had customizable pieces allowing for more space. Cranes were used to make the models fly.
Many practical sets were created on the soundstages and backlots of the Origo Film Studios in Budapest, Hungary, serving as interiors for the three planets. When designing Caladan, Vermette sought to give the planet "a feeling of melancholia". He wanted Caladan to resemble autumn in Canada, his home country, as he thought that it represented "the end of a cycle... or the beginning of a new one". He identified "dramatic coastal mountain ranges" and forests containing Norwegian pines as defining features of the planet. Meanwhile, the interior sets of Caladan were inspired by medieval Japanese aesthetics, particularly that of Paul's training room, containing intricate screens and diffused lighting. Props were created by set decorator Richard Roberts, including custom-made furniture, lighting, textiles produced in Denmark, and other items designed to look antique.
The original design for the sandworm was deemed "prehistoric", inspired by whales with baleen in their mouths. The sandworm's skin texture was based on tree bark and mud flats. Vermette spoke of the challenges involved in creating the set designs used for the sandworms, stating "It was a creature that commanded respect, and it's almost seen as a deity in the world of the Fremen. So that's why the first time you see the depiction of the sand worm on the mural, it's presented with sun coming out of its mouth".
The design for Arrakeen was influenced by the book's description of Arrakis's climate, with Vermette calling it "the biggest residency ever built by humankind" and "a response as a colonial entity that took over the planet for the exploitation of ... spice". He designed the city in a "rock bowl" shape to protect its infrastructure from sandworms, and built buildings at an angle to protect them from high wind speeds. The walls were thickened to make the interiors cooler. The team was inspired by WWII bunkers, Mayan temples, and Brazilian modernism. The history and culture of the Fremen was depicted in various murals throughout the residence, with Vermette comparing it to that of a church after envisioning Fremen artists doing so in order to depict the colonization of Arrakis. One practical set was the environmental lab in which Sardaukar soldiers descend from the air. The circular dome was 20 feet high, with the spokes being created by a special kind of cloth fabric, giving the illusion of shadows and providing proper lighting for the act. Agriculturally controlled sand was placed on the ground as filming took place during Budapest's raining season.
Over 1000 looks for Arrakis, Caladan, and Giedi Prime were designed by the team for the film. The costume design was done by Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan. Villeneuve wanted the costumes to be "grounded" in history while avoiding conventional futuristic views in science fiction films. West performed "psychological studies" of characters and historical research to associate their houses with historical "symbolic analogs", facilitating her costume design process. She took primary inspiration from the Middle Ages, particularly envisioning what it would look like in the future. She associated the Fremen with the French Resistance and the Sardaukar with the Nazis when designing the costumes. Additionally, she took inspiration from Giotto, Francisco Goya, Caravaggio, and British art historian John Berger, while emulating styles from the fashion of Balenciaga, the Bedouin, and Tuareg people.
West associated the Spacing Guild with the Avignon Papacy, connected their persecution of the Templars to that of House Atreides; she noted that the Emperor and his allies betrayed House Atreides. Reference pictures consisted of medieval popes and modernized it when designing their costumes. The Bene Gesserit sorceresses' costumes were based on tarot cards and chess pieces, while the Harkonnen armor was designed to resemble a bug's shell, using medieval drawings of "insects, spiders, ants, praying mantises and lizards" as reference. Meanwhile, the Atreides' costumes were based on the Romanovs, describing their costumes as having a "simplicity ... that was regal". Lady Jessica's dresses in the first half of the film were inspired by the works of Cristóbal Balenciaga, while the turmeric-toned gown she wears while landing on Arrakis was influenced by Middle Eastern clothing and paintings of women in North Africa.
West cited the films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Fahrenheit 451 (1966) as further inspirations for costume diversity. She also researched Roman and Greek mythology, feeling that the Atreides-Harkonnen feud was similar to a "real Greek and Roman tragedy". She dyed the gauze for Fremen cloth in desert colors, inspired by the sand and rocks in Jordanian filming locations. A prototype for the stillsuit was designed by West and Jose Fernandez at Ironhead Studios in Los Angeles. The prototype was then taken to Origo Studios, where a factory was set up to design additional suits within two weeks. He hired European artisans to create concept designs and over 150 individual pieces for the suits. Over 250 stillsuits were used when filming in Jordan. The suits were designed to be flexible and comfortably fit the actor's body, while also remaining accurate to the book. They created "micro-sandwiches" of acrylic fibers and porous cottons, which absorbed the moisture and allowed the actors to remain cool inside the suits. Tubing also ran through the micro-sandwiches for increased flexibility. Zippers and buttons were not used as they were deemed "archaic".
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