Sunday, October 30, 2011

Recap of the First Annual nextGEN Student Competition

nextGEN hosted the first annual local student competition Thursday, October 29th. The competition was a great success. Students from the Interior Designers Institute, in Newport Beach, and Cal State Long Beach came to support their fellow students. There were 6 students that competed, 2 were from the Interior Designers Institute and the remaining 4 were from Cal State Long Beach. They chose the brand they were to design for, met with their mentor, and off they went!

It was exciting to watch the students develop their design! The students worked for two and a half hours sketching, space planning, rendering, and developing their design concept. Then it was time for the students to present their designs to the judges. Two finalists were then selected to build a model of their design. Instead of  the finalists designing their models solo, the other competitors agreed to help the finalist with the construction of their models. The finalists were given building materials and a box filled with unusual objects. And off they went!

When the model building began, everyone gravitated toward the finalists. You could feel the excitement in the air. Everyone was cheering the students on. Their mentors couldn't just stay on the sidelines cheering, they jumped in to help the finalists build! Even some of the nextGEN members were eager to help.

Then two finalist then presented their models to the judges and a winner was chosen. All the students were winners. They were able to showcase their ability to space plan, sketch, and develop a concept in a few short hours. The industry professionals that were at the event were impressed by the students. The competition gave the students a great opportunity to network as well.

If you did not compete in this year there will be more opportunities to compete. nextGEN will be planing more local student competitions, so keep checking back!

Pictures soon to follow!

Friday, October 7, 2011

First Annual nextGEN Student Competition Presented by the Retail Design Institute


This one day, day of competition will be too exciting to miss out on. When you show up @ 2:30PM, you will be assigned a mentor from the industry and a department! You then have 3 hours too complete the first deliverable of 2 loose renderings a floor plan and a reflected ceiling plan. But while creating your design concept, keep in mind to design the best pop-up store feature so that if you are amongst the top 3, then you get to build this feature out of materials provided!!! So much excitement and it is such a great opportunity to meet professionals in the retail design industry.

Please contact us if you need anymore information! Spots are still available so join in!!!!