While creating a website or online portfolio is a great way to demonstrate your visual design skills, many potential employers and clients want to know more about what makes you uniquely qualified to design for their brand. A graphic design resume provides this proof of experience and expertise, including your work experience, training, range of abilities and everything else that makes you.
Today, we’ll look at inspiring graphic design resume examples by professionals to help you gain inspiration. Plus, we'll provide tips on how to make a graphic design resume of your own and why these personal website examples are an important asset to have when a prospective employer or client comes calling.
Learn more about how to make a website with our extensive guide.
11 graphic design resume examples
Check out these graphic design resume examples from Wix users. Below, we'll examine what writing and design practices make recruiters and hiring managers stop and pay attention.
01. Wylona Bouwens
A link on Wylona Bouwens’s About page directs interested parties to this beautiful one-page resume.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Bold and memorable logo
Clear content hierarchy by color and size
Ample white space
02. Kendall Brandt
Kendall Brandt’s online portfolio showcases her unique personality and interests, allowing her resume below to get down to business.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Clearly divided content sections
Highlighted "Work Experience"
Succinct, well-formatted, easily-scannable employment descriptions
Efficient, non-crowded layout
03. Toni Bonini
The graphic design resume for Toni Bonini has its own dedicated landing page on her portfolio website.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Web-based format
Linked design portfolio
Energetic, exciting candy-colored branding
Well-labeled, easy-to-read content
04. Virginia Chan
Virginia Chan’s CV lives on her website, alongside information about the designer as well as her portfolio of work.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Colorful border and clean dividing lines
Easy-to-follow, minimal design
Beautiful typography and subtle hints of color
Well-distributed, balanced content
05. Jennifer Espeseth
Jennifer Espeseth’s About page provides prospective employers and clients with a link to this attractive PDF resume.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Boldly colored and textured design
Easy to scan and read
A broad range of information (e.g. "Key Clients", "Additional Experience", as well as multiple modes of content)
06. April McCain
Although April McCain’s resume isn’t directly built into her website (there’s a link to the PDF on the About page), it has the same unique flair as her web design does.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Style and personality
Three column layout
Icons in the "Software" and "Things I Enjoy" sections
07. Justin Miller
Justin Miller takes visitors from a dark-themed About page to this bright, colorful and personable PDF resume.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Non-standard size
Strategic use of color, line art and typography
Featured headshot
08. Elise Van Valkenburg
The first call-to-action that visitors encounter on the home page for Elise Van Valkenburg is the invitation to view her easy-to-read PDF resume.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
No-frills design and layout
Well-done visual hierarchy and spacing
Efficient use of space
Neatly placed rows and columns
09. Saloni Joshi
Opting for a clean and simple design, Saloni Joshi has formed an impressive graphic design resume.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Two separate typefaces clearly differentiate headers and body text
Minimal color separates the sections in the vibrant design
Succinctly gathered skills and experiences
10. Hili Noy
Specializing in illustration, graphic design and motion graphics, Hili Noy’s broad skill set is instantly apparent on her unique, eye-catching CV.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Spot-on layout
Generous amount of white space
Different font weights and subtle separation lines
Illustration and icons
11. Marcy Monko
Merging an unconventional approach with a high level of professionalism, illustrator and design Marcy Monko's resume certainly stands out from the crowd.
What makes this graphic design resume stand out?
Bright, playful colors
Hand-lettered logo
Cohesive branding with website
Why you need a graphic design resume
First impressions matter a good deal when employers and recruiters determining which resume to focus on next. In 2018, a study from Ladders analyzed how long recruiters spend looking at resumes and which details they focus on. The results proved that on average, it takes only 7.4 seconds to make up their mind about a potential applicant.
When a new job or gig opens up, you can compete with between dozens to hundreds of other graphic designers working today. To stand out amongst candidates whose experience might look similar to your own, you need a polished graphic designer resume.
Your resume provides a prospective employer or client with relevant details regarding your experience, including:
Education
Employment
Skills
Areas of expertise
Achievements
When paired with an impressive portfolio of work, a professional resume will allow prospective clients to have a more well-rounded view of your personality, professional experience and capabilities. Ultimately, a good resume is a necessary asset for landing interviews and higher-quality job offers.
What to include in your graphic design resume
When recruiters and employers scan resumes for important details, they often look for this information first:
Name and location
Current title and employer
Previous job
Dates of employment
Education
While your resume should include these fundamentals listed above, a graphic designer's CV is also an opportunity to stand out. To give potential employers deeper insights into what it's like to work with you, consider including some of these details as well:
Branding
By creating a cohesive visual style for your personal brand, prospective employers can effortlessly move between your resume, portfolio and website. Even if create your resume on a PDF outside of your website, keep the branding consistent with your logo, colors, typography and other marketing assets.
Try this Creative CV template
Contact info
This is a small yet crucial part of your resume that should, at the very least, consist of your phone number, email address and website (when relevant). Some people also choose to also add their home address, but this isn’t a must.
In today's job market you may want to include links to your social media accounts as well, since these are commonly looked at as professional assets that give offer a deeper dive into your creative and professional capabilities. Depending on the position, some recruiters will want to see an active LinkedIn profile, on top of your ability to manage an active Instagram, TikTok or Facebook account.
Try this Creative CV template
Summary
Your resume's "Summary" section is like an elevator pitch—summing up your experience as a graphic designer, your major achievements, as well as your mission going forward. As you can see in the graphic design resume example below, a paragraph of between two and three sentences is sufficient and a great way to introduce your work.
Try this Creative CV template
Past experience
A section on employment history will always provide the bulk of a graphic designer’s resume. It includes a reverse chronological list of your most relevant and recent employment or freelance work.
Each item in this section should include the following details:
Job title
Employer or client (if relevant)
Location (if relevant)
Start and end dates
One-paragraph description
You may also want to add a bulleted list of key achievements to each role, and when possible, quantifiable data to support these achievements.
Try this Business CV template
Education
This section details all of your relevant educational experience—from formal training at a college or university, to short-term courses and certifications you’ve earned along the way.
Each item will include the following:
Academic institution or program
Start and end date
Degree or certificate awarded
If you find it valuable, you can also provide a description of the program and your personal academic achievements.
Try this Creative CV template
Skills
Recruiters and employers will carefully look for a well-rounded set of skills on a graphic designer’s resume. When building yours, include both hard skills and soft skills that prove you'll be the right person for the job, and don’t forget to include tools and software that you're proficient in.
Hard skills to list on a graphic designer resume include:
Adobe-certified professional
Typography specialist
Storyboard creation
Logo design
User interface design
Web design
Soft skills to list on a graphic designer resume include:
Communication
Organization
Creativity
Problem solving
Time management
Try this UX designer template
Awards (optional)
If you’ve received recognition for your graphic design work, include a list of awards and press in this section, along with the organization who issued it and the date each was received.
Memberships (optional)
Let prospective employers know about professional memberships you participate in, conferences you’ve attended, and meetups you’ve organized. Even if you're a freelancer working on your own, you'll make a positive impression by highlighting teamwork, a desire to learn from others, and collaborative skills.
Languages (optional)
If you design for brands around the world, highlight your multilingual capabilities to give yourself a competitive edge and grab even more opportunities.
Interests (optional)
While your professional website will give prospective clients or employers a good idea of your character, you may want to devote leftover space on your resume to your interests.
How to create a graphic design resume in 10 steps
By now, you know that a graphic design resume is the key to landing high-quality work. When you go off and create your own, make sure to follow these 10 steps on how to write a resume and design an effective one.
01. Build your personal branding
A graphic designer without a clear visual style to show potential clients is like a web designer without a website of their own. Before you do anything else, focus on your branding by creating your own logo, and narrowing down your personal brand's colors, typography, visual style and tone of voice.
Visually communicating your design experience to hiring managers is a critical part of the hiring process, so it's also crucial to make sure your own website and portfolio reflect your style. If you're just beginning the process of creating a personal website, check out these personal website examples for inspiration.
02. Create 2-3 types of resume formats
You can get your resume into the hands of a prospective employer or client in three different ways:
Give them a hard, printed copy of it in person.
Share a PDF file with them online—via email, a job submission platform or on your portfolio website’s About page.
Point them to a dedicated resume website or landing page.
While you might not need a printed version of resume, every designer should have a digital version available. A PDF resume gives you something tangible to share and upload. If you apply to jobs over email or third-party platforms, you’ll find that many employers request a resume in this format.
One of the benefits of creating an online resume in addition to a PDF, is that it allows prospects to learn who you are (from your About page), see samples of your work (from the Portfolio page) and then dig deep into your professional background (from your Resume)—all in one place. Secondly, search engines can index and rank online resumes, which means that employers searching for candidates via Google can discover you that way.
03. Start with a graphic design resume template
If you want to spend more time on writing and branding and less time laying your content out, use a resume website template.
In addition to kick-starting the process, resume and CV website templates can provide you with inspiration. And as you can see from the graphic design resume examples above, you can lay out and style your CV in many different ways.
04. Keep the design simple
While a common practice is limiting a resume to one page, two-page resumes are becoming more common and acceptable for those with more professional experience. Depending on the length of your design career, you might feel limited in how much and which pieces of information you can share.
But whether it's one or two pages—you don’t have a lot of space to work with when it comes to creating resumes. So when designing your own, keep it simple. Use colors, lines, white space and borders to create a visually interesting layout. Also, keep in mind that the only images you should add to your resume are your logo or headshot.
05. Use legible typography
Although you can use fancy and experimental fonts in logo design and in some parts of your website, that type of typography should be avoided on a resume. Since font sizes on a CV should range between 12 and 20 points, your main focus should be on using highly readable fonts.
For the paragraph text, we recommend you use system fonts like:
Arial
Calibri
Garamond
Helvetica
Roboto
Times New Roman
For headline fonts, you can get a little more creative. Still, it's a good idea to skip the handwritten and futuristic fonts, opting for typography from serif and sans serif families.
06. Tell a logical story
According to research by Nielsen Norman Group, people’s eyes follow four patterns when glancing at a page. In each of these patterns, their focus always starts at the top, so place the most important information on your graphic design resume's header, including:
Branding
Contact info
Summary
Then, use what you know about recruiters to lay out the rest of your story. For example, you may find that employers look for "Employment" and "Education" sections first. Those should generally appear directly below the resume header content.
From there, fill in the remaining space with your most important and impressive details. Depending on how much experience you have, you might feel as though you need to fill more than a page. In the past, many professionals felt discouraged from doing so. This often meant leaving off relevant info or trying to cram all of it into a single page—neither of which is ideal.
However, recent data from Zety suggests that recruiters prefer resumes that are longer than a page. According to Zety’s research, the average resume length is 489 words. One page is about 380 words, so it appears that many resumes these days break that single-page mark.
What’s more, recruiters are 1.4 times as likely to choose an applicant that has a two-page resume for entry-level work and 2.9 times as likely for a more experienced position. 77% of employers also prefer to hire seasoned professionals that have a two-page resume.
07. Make your content "skimmable"
It takes about seven seconds for a recruiter or employer to decide if they like you as a candidate. To make a positive impression in that time span, make it easy for recruiters to get a bird’s-eye view of your personality and experience. If you do it right, they’ll go on to read the rest.
A clean and well-organized layout will help make your resume more "skimmable", as well the way you structure its content. This includes:
Writing no more than a paragraph of text for each point under the sections "Summary", "Employment" and "Education".
Creating a distinctive hierarchy where headers and sub-headers are bigger and bolder (and even more colorful) than the other text.
Using bullet points to list out points (like under "Key Achievements") rather than writing full paragraphs.
08. Choose your words wisely
According to a Cultivated Culture analysis, 51% of resumes include cliches, buzzwords and other poorly chosen words that can all-too-often frustrate recruiters. You want to avoid this by carefully choosing the words used in your resume.
For starters, leave out the words that are exhausted and overused on today's resumes, like these from CareerBuilder:
Driven
Expert
Extensive experience
Motivated
Organizational
Responsible
Strategic
In some cases, you should avoid using jargon as well. While words and phrases related to design systems, principles and processes might make sense to you and impress certain clients, they may confuse recruiters. Instead, use clear, concise and accurate copy, including action verbs to describe your day-to-day and capabilities.
09. Check spelling and grammar
Before you send out your resume or publish it on your website, proofread it. You can use a friend, colleague or an AI grammar tool to check for spelling and grammatical errors. It's also helpful to read your resume out loud, helping you spot awkward phrasing or run-on sentences.
10. Tweak your resume for each application
According to information from CareerBuilder, 54% of applicants don’t send a custom resume for each job or gig application. If you want to stand out from the pool of graphic designers sending the same resume to every job opening, then personalize yours.
You don’t need to worry about redesigning your resume each time you send it out. It's enough to update the following sections to ensure your pitch aligns more specifically with the job you're applying for:
Your resume "Summary"
The "Skills" section
Other sections like "Awards," "Memberships" or "Languages" that can differentiate you from others
Also, read through the job description carefully and make note of relevant keywords and skills the employer might look for. If you can update your resume's "Experience" or "Education" sections with some of those terms, do it.