48hr Film Festival
Bringing Genre to Life Through Design at the Pittsburgh 48 Hour Film Project.
This year, I had the chance to be part of something incredibly creative and fast paced through the 48 Hour Film Project Pittsburgh. If you are unfamiliar with the event, filmmakers are given just 48 hours to write, shoot, edit, and submit a short film based on a randomly assigned genre and required elements. It is chaotic, collaborative, stressful, exciting, and honestly one of the coolest creative events happening in Pittsburgh.
For this year’s event, I was invited to create several of the physical genre cards used during the genre drawing process. The cards I designed were Misunderstanding, Silent Film, and Drama. Each one needed to visually capture the feeling and personality of its genre while still fitting within the overall experience of the event.
What I loved most about this project was the challenge of translating abstract storytelling concepts into visual design. A genre like Drama carries a completely different emotional weight than something like Silent Film, which relies heavily on visual storytelling and cinematic expression. Misunderstanding was especially fun to tackle because it allowed for more conceptual and layered visual ideas.
Knowing that filmmakers would randomly receive these cards and immediately begin building stories around them made the process even more exciting. The designs became more than just graphics. They became creative prompts and part of the energy that kicked off an entire weekend of filmmaking.
As someone who works across graphic design, branding, and UX/UI, projects like this are a reminder of why I love design in the first place. Good design helps shape experiences. It creates emotion, atmosphere, and inspiration before a single frame of film is even shot.
It was such a fun opportunity to contribute to Pittsburgh’s creative community in a different way, and I am incredibly grateful to have been part of the event alongside so many talented filmmakers, artists, and organizers.
I cannot wait to see the films that came out of this year’s challenge!!
