RIYADH, 9 August 2005 — Artists living in Saudi Arabia have an opportunity to win cash prizes by participating in a contest to create a new official logo for the OPEC Fund for International Development. “Awards will be given to the winners, whose names will be announced by the jury entrusted with the task to scrutinize and select the entries,” said a spokeswoman of the Vienna-based OPEC Fund for Development, recently.
Lezetge Kilian, the fund’s spokeswoman, did’t disclose the amount of money to be given to the winners. She, however, said that it would be “substantial.” She said that the competition was open for all OPEC member states including Saudi Arabia. The entries will be selected on the basis of the artistic quality and the ways in which the artwork in the form of a logo will symbolize the fund’s mission.
Spelling out the features of the new logo, Kilian said that the new official logo must incorporate the name “The OPEC Fund for International Development”. The identity can be text-based, logo or any combination graphic formats. It must be easily recognizable and text should be easy to read. The design must not contain any expressions/references that are of an obscene or violent nature. All entries must be received by the fund by midnight, Central European Time (CET), on Oct. 3, 2005.
The new official logo should reflect the message and mission of the fund, which works to assist non-OPEC developing countries in their social and economic advancement. The logo should be suitable for adaptation to a variety of formats, such as the fund’s printed materials and its website. The fund was created in 1976 as an instrument of solidarity among OPEC countries and as a vehicle for the promotion of closer cooperation.
The fund has been financing development projects, programs and initiatives of high value in roughly 119 countries mainly poor nations worldwide. The OPEC fund, 35 percent of whose financial resources are contributed by Saudi Arabia, has committed more than $7.5 billion to development assistance. The fund is led currently by Suleiman Jasir Al-Herbish of Saudi Arabia, who is the director-general of this 12-member fund. Saudi Arabia has played a major role in creating the OPEC fund besides being a co-founder of the fund.
