Living Dead Museum
A zombie museum in the birthplace of modern horror that nobody was visiting. The problem wasn't the subject matter. It was that standing still while the world moved wasn't a strategy.
The birthplace of modern horror. And nobody was coming.
How might we reinvent the Living Dead Museum for a new generation of horror fans?
Evans City, Pennsylvania sits about 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh. In 1968, George Romero filmed "The Night of the Living Dead" here, and the town has the dubious honor of being the birthplace of the modern zombie film. Kevin Kriss, the museum's owner, had spent years assembling an impressive collection of Living Dead memorabilia, and in 2013 he opened the museum to considerable fanfare. Then attendance plateaued.
Three distinct groups were staying away. Local townspeople found the zombie theme off-putting in an otherwise family-friendly town. Younger audiences had no relationship with the original film and found a prop museum tame compared to modern horror experiences. And tourists, even those already in Pittsburgh, had no reliable way to find out the museum existed at all.
We watched the movie. Walked the cemetery. Then talked to everyone.
The research started where the story started. We watched the original film, visited the cemetery from the opening scene, and walked through the museum with the owner. Then we talked to current management, interviewed locals about their attitudes, and spoke with younger visitors to understand what they were looking for and why the current experience wasn't it.
Secondary research looked at how Pittsburgh had built on its reputation in the broader horror space, including the proliferation of escape rooms and immersive experiences in the city's downtown. Pittsburgh had branded itself the zombie capital of the world, and the infrastructure for horror tourism was already there. The museum just wasn't connected to it.
What the research made clear: the museum's core problem wasn't the subject matter. Zombie culture had never been more mainstream. The problem was the format. A collection of props from a 50-year-old film, even a historically significant one, can't compete with the multi-sensory experiences younger audiences expect. And without a digital presence, the museum was invisible to anyone who hadn't already heard about it by word of mouth.
From prop museum to escape room. One hour to get out alive.
The design proposal reoriented the museum around a single idea: stop showing the film and put people inside it. The centerpiece is a series of escape rooms built around scenes from "The Night of the Living Dead" — with a full rebrand, new signage, and an Instagram strategy to reach Pittsburgh-area horror fans.
The escape room experience was designed as a full sensory sequence. Participants are chased into a dark room that replicates the key room from the original film, complete with a partially devoured corpse in the corner. Smoke fills the air. Through the walls, they hear glass breaking, grunts, groans, and screams. A radio starts broadcasting the film's emergency transmission — this time with additions in Morse Code. At 45 minutes, the lights go out. At 55 minutes, zombies start banging on the door.
Alongside the escape rooms, the proposal included a full rebrand: a new name (the Living Dead Experience), a redesigned logo built around Romero's zombie imagery, updated signage, and a new visual system that could carry across the website, merchandise, and social media. An Instagram strategy targeted anyone within an hour's radius of Pittsburgh, reaching horror fans who had no idea the museum existed.
Instagram strategy mockup: branded content designed to reach horror fans within an hour's radius of Pittsburgh, where the museum had no digital presence before.
Instagram strategy mockup: branded content designed to reach horror fans within an hour's radius of Pittsburgh, where the museum had no digital presence before.