Design is all about creativity, innovation, and identifying how you can give your target audience what they need. You might create designs for print graphics, webpages, or even stunning new fashion pieces.
But how do you convey your specialties and skills in a compelling resume? What examples do you list to show that you’ve got what it takes to make each new design cutting-edge and engaging?
We’ve got this covered. After years of helping people like you land roles in everything from fashion to graphic design, we’ve put together five designer resume examples and a free cover letter builder to inspire you!
Why this resume works
- Websites are now part of the center nerve for driving sales through increased engagements with potential customers. Hiring managers would notice your numbers in driving up ad impressions and conversions.
- Be innovative and turn such accomplishments to your advantage in your designer resume by emphasizing how your efforts increased organic website traffic and decreased bounce rate.
Why this resume works
- It’s fine if you don’t start as a designer from the get-go. Your product designer resume can do wonders even by including other unrelated work experience in fields like sales.
- Just ensure that your previous roles have something to do with designing. For instance, check out how Kennedy uses their retail sales associate experience to show proficiency in using tools like Sketchfab and AutoCAD while they were still pursuing a degree!
Why this resume works
- A great way to make your costume designer resume stand out from other applicants is having a relevant accreditation such as being a Certified Costume Designer (CCD).
- You can take this approach one step further by including your education qualifications in the field. If you’ve got a bachelor’s in costume design or theater arts, then now’s the best time to reveal it. Prove your worth and credibility simultaneously with certificates and education.
Why this resume works
- With mobile traffic claiming the lion’s share as the top source for website and app access, companies want to leverage that insight and keep users visiting their sites with better chances of conversion.
- Show the kind an asset you are to a potential employer by putting numbers to your mobile-eccentric designs to boost traffic and user engagement across platforms in your web designer resume.
Why this resume works
- The fashion industry is under immense pressure to adopt environment-friendly practices to remain successful in the future. Recruiters in this robust industry would be impressed by your fashion designer resume highlighting your initiative to identify sustainable and cost-saving materials.
- Such is a unique achievement that underscores your ability to be innovative to ensure business growth now and in the future.
Related resume examples
Tailor Your Designer Resume to the Job Ad
First, take a look at that job listing again. What specific skills do they ask for? What aspects of the job role do they emphasize the most? Does each team member strictly stick with one design area, or will you wear a few different hats?
Search for skills in the job ad that you already have. Maybe you’ve been stylizing your clothes with scissors and safety pins since you were a kid. Or maybe you have an unparalleled passion for packaging design!
Base which skills you choose to list on what the job requirements emphasize. Make them as relevant to the individual job as possible, and get super specific!
Need some ideas to start with?
15 best designer skills
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Drawing
- 3D Modeling
- AutoCAD
- Fashion Tookbox
- Optitex
- Sublime Text
- Figma
- Bootstrap
- WordPress
- Hotjar
- Canva
- Wireframes
- Client Interviews
Your designer work experience bullet points
While the job description is certainly a great friend when building your designer resume, you don’t want to get too hung up on the job duties. While you want to include the right keywords to get past the ATS, your resume should focus on your design accomplishments instead of parroting job requirements.
Use active verbs in each experience point and enthusiasm in your writing tone. (Make sure you keep your tone pretty close to what you read in the job description, especially when it comes to formality.)
Pick your crowning achievements based on the job ad, but focus on conveying the impact you had in your field. Provide solid metrics for your success to elevate your credibility, too:
- Manual labor hour reductions showcase your efficiency and teamwork
- Dollar amounts help quantify budget savings thanks to your agility
- Feedback ratings attest to the effectiveness of your creations
- Customer satisfaction or retention rates in percentages show that your designs worked
See what we mean?
- Contributed to a 26% increase in conversion rates by designing persuasive ads for online campaigns using Canva
- Conducted A/B testing on landing page designs, resulting in a winning design that got a 4.8/5 star feedback rating
- Developed compelling Adobe Express social media graphics that led to 1.3K more followers and a 23% boost in overall engagement
- Received a 93/100 positive press rating and coverage from reputable fashion publications for designs showcased at New York Fashion Week
- Worked with cross-functional teams on Basecamp, employing strategic thinking to elevate satisfaction among colleagues and reduce their manual work hours by 11 hours weekly
9 active verbs to start your designer work experience bullet points
- Created
- Conceptualized
- Led
- Developed
- Conducted
- Oversaw
- Contributed
- Drove
- Achieved
3 Tips for Writing a Designer Resume Without Much Experience
- Don’t forget other experiences!
- If you feel like your designer resume looks a bit too “airy” for your taste, you can always turn to other projects you’ve completed. As long as it relates to design and can be quantified to make a good impression, use it!
- You can list academic achievements, too
- If you boast a superb GPA or have other academic achievements, like winning graphic design or costume design contests in college . . . you’ve got it. Add them to your resume.
- Try a career objective
- An objective statement might also be a good option to up the ante on your design resume. Use it to tell recruiters your career goals, how they’ll benefit your potential employer, and what qualifies you for the role.
3 Tips for Writing a Designer Resume if You’ve Got Some Experience Already
- Try reverse-chronological formatting
- When you have a more extensive history in design, reverse-chronological formatting will help you by placing your most advanced experience points at the top. This format makes recruiters more likely to see your best design points at a glance.
- Stick with just a few jobs
- Even if you have a laundry list of design jobs under your belt, now’s a good time to streamline your experience section. Just list three or four jobs in your experience section, and make sure they’re the most memorable ones!
- Nix (most) academic achievements
- Now that you’ve made a bit of a name for yourself, you don’t need to use page space on your GPA or other academic achievements—unless you helped with a design project that was really impressive. By this stage, you’ll want to let your design experiences speak for themselves.
Revisit the job description, take a look at the company website where you’re applying, and read attentively. Take note of how they sound when they write everything from the job description to their about page, and mirror that writing style in your design resume.
There’s another reason to circle back to the job ad. What job requirements do they emphasize the most? If they’re all about concept sketches and prototypes, then you’ll want to pick examples with related metrics that reinforce your alignment with the job role.
Just as you’d consider the visual hierarchy of a graphic brochure or webpage, compare our different resume templates to see which one arranges your qualifications to look most pleasing. You want recruiters to see your excellence right away!
