A local initiative in 1953, state organisers in 1954 and a shell for the main prize.

The San Sebastián International Film Festival began as a week rather than a festival. English Wikipedia says it was founded on 21 September 1953 as the Semana Internacional del Cine de San Sebastián, the San Sebastián International Film Week, and Spanish Wikipedia describes that opening edition as a week promoted by the city’s local businesses. The festival now uses three forms of its name: Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián in Spanish, Donostia Zinemaldia in Basque, and the English initials SSIFF. It is held in San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, generally in September.

The second edition changed both the name and the organisers. Spanish Wikipedia says that in 1954 the event took the title Festival Internacional de Cine when the Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo and the Ministry of Information and Tourism took over its organisation. English Wikipedia says the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) admitted it in 1957 to the non-specialised competitive category, later commonly called “Class A”, after a colour-film competition in 1955.

The shell arrived with the prizes. Spanish Wikipedia says the festival began awarding the Concha de Plata, or Silver Shell, in 1955, and that in 1957, with the new category, the Gran Concha de Oro was established as the main award. English Wikipedia names the Golden Shell as the principal competitive prize of the Official Selection.

The category moved again later. English Wikipedia says the festival held non-competitive status for the five editions from 1980 to 1984, and that FIAPF restored the competitive category for the 1985 edition, initially for a two-year trial.

A four-way public company, a seafront venue and named sections.

The film critic and writer Diego Galán became artistic director in 1986, after serving as a consultant the year before. English Wikipedia says he directed the festival from 1986 to 1989 and again from 1995 to 2000, and that in 1986 the festival introduced the Donostia Award, an honorary career prize. José Luis Rebordinos has directed the festival since 2011, and in April 2026 deputy director Maialen Beloki was confirmed as his successor, with her term set to begin on 1 January 2027.

The organiser is a public company. English Wikipedia says Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia / San Sebastián, S.A. was incorporated on 21 December 1990 and is owned in equal shares by the City Council of San Sebastián, the Basque Government, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the Spanish Ministry of Culture, with the mayor of San Sebastián as chair. Its permanent headquarters are at Tabakalera, the city’s contemporary culture centre.

The principal venue is the Kursaal. English Wikipedia says the congress centre and auditorium, designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, opened in 1999 on the site of the Gran Kursaal, a 1921 casino building demolished in 1973. In 1989 six architects were invited to a technical consultation — Mario Botta, Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, Moneo, Juan Navarro Baldeweg and Luis Peña Ganchegui — and Moneo’s project, titled “Two Stranded Rocks”, was chosen. Wikipedia says it was inaugurated on 23 August 1999, and that the festival’s Official Selection screenings and ceremonies take place in its main auditorium.

Other venues spread the festival through the city. English Wikipedia lists the Victoria Eugenia Theatre, the Príncipe and Trueba cinemas and the Antonio Elorza Velodrome among them; Spanish Wikipedia says the Victoria Eugenia returned to the festival in 2007 after works that had kept it closed since 2000. The section names form their own vocabulary in three languages: Horizontes Latinos, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, Perlak, the Basque-cinema section Zinemira and Culinary Zinema, organised with the Basque Culinary Center.

The trophy, the sting and the poster on the wall.

Many film festivals let an object stand in for a logo. The prize handed to winners is often drawn from something tied to the place, such as a plant, an animal, a shell or a local craft material, and once it has been photographed in enough winners’ hands it becomes the shape people recognise. That puts the designer in an unusual position: the mark has to work as a flat outline on a ticket or a lanyard and as a solid thing made of metal, glass or crystal that can be held up on a stage. When the outline is redrawn, the physical trophy usually follows more slowly, because new pieces have to be made, and for a time old and new versions can appear side by side.

The festival also speaks before every screening. A short sting or trailer, often only a few seconds long, plays ahead of each film and is seen many times by the same audience over a week, so it tends to be simple, quick to read and easy to sit through again. Some festivals commission a new one each year from a studio, a school or a guest artist; others keep the same sequence for decades until regulars greet it by reflex. The yearly poster works on a different timescale. It is announced months ahead, printed in many sizes, hung in shop windows and on hoardings around the town, and later collected and archived, which gives each edition its own picture while the name, the prize and the sting carry over from year to year.

A name-only poster, a simplified shell and posters for film trades.

Spanish Wikipedia says the festival presented a new graphic identity at its 55th edition in 2007. For several years after that, section posters were chosen by open competition. The Basque public broadcaster EITB reported on 9 May 2014 that the 62nd edition’s image had been presented at the Eureka! Zientzia Museoa along with the winners of the festival’s third poster competition. The official poster, “Little 62”, came from the San Sebastián studio TGA + Asociados; EITB named its authors as Txema García Amiano, Nagore García Pascual and Xabier Martinez de Arbulo Vidal, and quoted them saying the design had one essential aim: to underline the festival itself. EITB said it did so using only the festival’s name, with nothing added.

The emblem was redrawn four years later. EITB reported on 3 May 2018 that the festival had presented a new, simplified Concha: the shell that gives its name and shape to the main prizes and that had been part of the festival’s image for more than three decades. The stated aim was to modernise the brand and gain visibility, which EITB quoted as a key aspect for the international market. Rebordinos said the new image would be applied over two years and that the gold and silver shells handed to winners would also be changed gradually. The new shell was presented at Tabakalera with the 66th edition’s section posters, and EITB said each section would be told apart by its own colour, a graphic coherence the festival meant to keep for many years. Eye for Film, in its gallery of the 2018 posters by Amber Wilkinson, credited them to the San Sebastián studio TGA and quoted the festival: it had “chosen to use a conch shell of more synthetic lines and greater visual punch”.

The posters now pay tribute to people and trades. EITB reported on 3 June 2026 that the official poster of the 74th edition, held from 18 to 26 September 2026, features the actor, producer and director Ricardo Darín in a collage made from a portrait taken in 2024, and that the posters were designed by the San Sebastián studio Wallijai. The section posters were each tied to a film trade: script for New Directors, sound for Horizontes Latinos, direction for Zabaltegi-Tabakalera, editing for Perlak, art direction for Nest, make-up for Culinary Zinema, special effects for Zinemira and production for Made in Spain.

For a design guide, the San Sebastián International Film Festival shows how a shell named in a prize can serve as the festival’s mark, redrawn to simpler lines while section colours and a yearly poster carry each edition. Compare Cannes Film Festival, whose palm is both trophy and emblem, and Berlinale, another festival named after its city. For this guide we use bay blue, shell gold and ink with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep San Sebastián International Film Festival’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.