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A block-built bear and the word BERLINALE in white on a black rectangle, centred on flat redThe mark, flat: modular bear locked to the wordmark

The challenge

The Berlinale is the most political of the major festivals and the least legible. Sections multiplied, the bear drifted, and the identity changed enough each year that fifteen editions left no cumulative memory. It needed a system that could absorb a new poster every year without starting over.

The solution

We rebuilt the bear as a modular grid so it can be reconstructed in blocks, in type, in seating plans, in scaffolding. The poster remains the annual variable; the grid underneath it does not. Red is fixed, black is fixed, the grid is fixed — everything else is allowed to argue.

A large cinema auditorium seen from the back with empty rows of seats, the screen ahead showing the Berlinale title card in white on red.Opening night: the card holds at 20 metres wide, the house held empty before doors
Flat black page listing Berlinale section names in white ruled tabular columnsThe programme grid: sections held on one ruled system
Flat grey poster reading STREIT in heavy black caps, repeated above and belowPoster artwork tiles: the annual variable, one grid
A closed laptop sits squared on a dusty desk in a dark room, its screen glowing with a black-and-white landscape film still and the Berlinale programme mark and text laid over the lower half.Programme site: the grid survives the browser
Red street poster case in a wet Berlin street repeating the line KINO IST STREITStreet case, Mitte: the argument posted at eye level
A vertical column of complete red, black, and grey printed accreditation cards, each fully visible with clear margin, showing the identical modular block bear built from flush rectangles on a square grid.Accreditation cards, uncoated red, one ink, one consistent bear mark, each card whole in frame
Red and black banner hung taut on steel cable along a concrete cinema facade reading BERLINALE STREIT, with the bear shown as a hand-cut silhouette rearing on its hind legs, forelimbs raised, in profileFacade banner: the mark corrected to match the identity
Nested red, black and grey rectangles receding to a black card with the Berlinale markMotion key: the grid rebuilding itself inward
A red lectern bearing the geometric bear mark stands alone before a screen reading KINO IST STREITPress conference: the system takes a position

Project Information

A festival identity has an unusual failure mode: it can be excellent every single year and still add up to nothing, because nothing carries across editions.

The Berlinale had exactly this problem. Fifteen strong posters, fifteen different systems, and an audience that could not describe what the festival looked like.

We separated the two jobs. The annual poster stays annual — it should respond to the programme, the politics and the year. Underneath it we installed a fixed grid, and rebuilt the bear as a modular construction within that grid.

Because the bear is modular it can be assembled from anything: type blocks, seating plans, scaffolding, subtitles, the queue barriers outside the Palast. Each edition builds the same animal out of different material.

Red and black are non-negotiable. Everything else — imagery, secondary type, tone — is left free to argue, which for this particular festival is not a compromise but the brief.

CAIO BARRETO

Creative Direction:
Caio Barreto

Design:
Júlia Bertoldi, Nara Vasconcelos, Kwame Osei, Marina Yuki

Motion Design:
Rafael Duarte, Ingrid Sollberg

Interactive Design:
Caio Bastos, Elif Demir

Strategy & Copywriting:
Priya Raghunathan, No Alves

Project Management:
Helena Braga

Account Direction:
Diego Fontenelle

Operations:
Sofia Krammer

Poster Design:
Júlia Bertoldi, Kwame Osei

Image Direction:
Bea Mendonça

Fonts:
GT Alpina, Favorit Mono — Grilli Type / Dinamo

Year:
2026

Brand Identity · Concept

Self-initiated concept work. Berlinale is not a client of CAIO BARRETO. Imagery generated, not photographed.