Happy New Year

Happy New Year from all of us at nextGEN! 

We hope you had a wonderful year. See you in 2012!

Let's Talk Website Building

Times are changing. Having your own website and online portfolio is becoming a necessity for design students entering the industry. You may be asking yourself were to I begin? There are various website building companies out there. 

It may seeming overwhelming to start designing your website. The easy out would be to have someone else design it for you. If you are extremely busy, having someone else design your website may be the best choice. However, we strongly recommend designing your website yourself. Our society is fulled with many do it yourselfers. So why not build your website yourself? It will expand your skills and a great experience. 

Here are a few companies that help you design your own website. 

Squarespace

Wix

Flavors

Mooonfruit

Cargo Collective

Carbonmade

Happy designing!

Break the Multitasking Habit

Multitasking is one habit that is far too familiar and common for many us. Break the Multitasking Habit by Antia Bruzzese is a great article. The article explains how multitasking is hurtful to one's productivity. Even though multitasking is a difficult habit to break, it's a habit that needs to be broken.   

To read the complete article please click here.

Make the Most of Your Break

Hey students, we hope you are enjoying your break from school. Why not make the most of your time off and apply for a job or internship. US Green Building Council (USGBC) has some jobs available!! If you are interested in learning more about sustainability and design then apply for one of the positions available. What a great way to expand your knowledge about sustainability and design.

To see the positions available please click here.

Happy Holidays

We hope you have a wonderful holiday and a great New Year.

From all of us at nextGEN, Happy Holidays!

The Young Guns Contest

Hot off the Twitter feed, Dwell is having a design competition for students. What student would not want to be recognized in a world-renowned magazine such as Dwell.

Reprising last year's solicitation of student-made graphic, industrial, font, interactive, and architectural design work, Dwell is proud to invite students to submit their work for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of the magazine. (Accompanied by an online feature, naturally.)

If you were enrolled in some kind of schooling when you engineered your groundbreaking design, and it can be visually represented in a photograph or rendering, then we want to share your work with our community. Once we gather up some favorites, the editors will pick a selection for a page in the May 2012 issue. The community-led voting session will determine which twenty submissions will be featured in an online roundup. Cue accolades, congratulations, toasting, laurels, and so on.

All it takes is one static image to represent your hard-won academic achievements. When you email it to us, don't forget to include a short statement about your project's theme, what materials you used, when you created it, and what school you attend. And it goes without saying that we only want to see your own work. Source Dwell Magazine

Read more: http://www.dwell.com/articles/the-youngest-guns.html#ixzz1h71dLBNg

Intersecting Retail & Philanthropy

Who doesn't love design, fashion, and charitable causes? Treasure & Bond wants to generate change for its surrounding community. With every purchase made, 100% of all of their after-cost profits goes directly to those who are in need.

What may surprise you is Nordstrom is the name behind Treasure & Bond. Treasure & Bond opened it's doors in August 2011. Part gift boutique, part art gallery and part neighborhood gathering place, it’s an exciting new experiment in giving that has, at its core, one simple goal: To help people help people—and to do so with wit, imagination and style.

Treasure & Bond has an unique feel. The merchandise itself is used to display goods. The space has a funky, trendy feel that is exhibited in the SoHo neighborhood. The design of the store is flexible with the varying merchandise that comes in.

You can read more about Nordstrom's charity concept store, Treasure & Bond, here.