Manah: The second day of the 20th Students Forum, held at Oman Across Ages Museum, saw a flurry of activities on Tuesday.
The museum traces the story of Oman from prehistoric times to the present, spanning different ages, dynasties and civilisation.
It is located in the Wilayat of Manah in the heart of the Governorate of A’Dakhiliyah, Oman Across Ages Museum is just one hour and 40 minutes (160 km) by car from Muscat and 20 minutes (20km) from Nizwa.
On Tuesday, there was an encouraging response as large-scale attendance of academics, students, administrative staff from branches of UTAS along with employees of a number of private and public sectors in the halls of the museum was witnessed.
A workshop entitled “Your way to build a brand” was delivered by Professor Rayyan Abdullah, Dean of Fine Arts College in Leipzig in Germany. Professor Abdullah is a renowned name in the world of branding and has worked on branding of well-known companies as Bugatti, Volkswagen, German transportation and many others.
Abdullah said that in order to become a No.1 designer, one should always start with mental designing and have a paper and pen ready to start with.
Abdullah said: “Designing is the biggest philosophy of the company on the smallest space given.”
He explained in depth the factors that help in designing a logo or redesigning a brand of a company in an outstanding manner.
Designing fonts is one of the great skills performed by Professor Abdullah. He designed unique fonts for brands of big companies as Burberry, Metro Dubai and Nokia and has published a book on fonts of big companies.
Waseem Qaddora was the presenter of the second workshop, titled “Branding Visual Identity”.
A specialist in visual communication and identity, he spoke about the difference between brand and brand identity.
He also talked about brand naming and said: “Brand naming is always a part of branding”.
Qaddora added: “We are living in a branding world, the most important thing in the company or business is the brand logo, sometimes the logo branding is more expensive than whatever the company owns. Sometimes rebranding a logo costs a company more than designing a logo.”
UTAS Nizwa student Jawaher Al Kharusi spoke about how to make reels. She explained how to make creative reels, possible obstacles for the reel makers to encounter and how to overcome.
One of the attendees, Rawan Al Hasani, mass communication student at UTAS Nizwa, expressed her happiness at participating in this workshop. “I am very glad to be given a chance to attend this fruitful workshop that witnessed a huge attendance from students of different branches of UTAS. I can make reels with better quality from now onwards”.
There were also workshops on “Virtual Reality Technology” by Congenial Production Company and “Creative Design Binoculars” by Abdul Majeed Al Shehhi.
Participations of the hackathon were received at the end of the day for evaluation. A theatrical play entitled “Lost Souls Station” was conducted in Nizwa Hall at UTAS Nizwa. The participants of the Forum from UTAS branches will also be taken for a tour of the traditional Nizwa Souq.