Design Resume
Designer resumes are simple and easy to make because designers can create anything, right? Wrong! A designer, be it an interior designer or a fashion designer or a graphics designer, needs as much help in creating the best resume as you and me.
Playing with Design: Designers are expected to have super creative minds that can churn out the best and most inspiring ideas. True, but does it really help them secure their jobs or get a contract? No. Most designers at sometime or the other, need to sit down and think and come up with resume that speaks not only of them but also of their profession.
Designer resumes must be creative without of course going overboard. Too much use of graphics, fancy tables, time lines, spiral charts that showcase your career graph might distract a recruiter who probably isn't from a designing background.
Therefore, play with Photoshop, MS Office and other tools to come up with a theme. It shouldn't be too fancy. Fewer graphics and short descriptions that align with graphics are far more catchy and readable.
Add a Color: If you had designed a lovely studio apartment that was noticed by the local newspaper. Add this experience. You convinced your first contract clients to color their office in red or designed clothes for cheerleaders is a remarkable point. Add such designer experiences in a a bulleted list. Use vibrant colors to highlight the important sections.
Use Creative Tongue: A difficult part of designer resume is how does one convey ones designing achievements in those one or two pages. Your award winning floral design or park layout design must be described in a very few short lines, preferably with the award name mentioned. For example, ' Best Mall Architecture from Good House Keeping Magazine' speaks volumes about the your creative achievement.
Be careful not to exaggerate though. You can write a simple rhyming poem that showcases your past work, but then get it reviewed by your peers, so that you end up losing face.
Objective View: If you are unsure about your designer career path, go for vacation! No, literally! Take a vacation. It can calm you and help you contemplate about your immediate career goals. Once you are sure, write down in the simplest possible words how you would like to make your mark as a designer in a such a way that is fruitful, both for you and your employers.
Objectives like, ' I'm a career changing designer who wants to use his creativity for gaining Chief Designer position,' might make the recruiter gasp. Obviously, 'career changing' designer is not required for long term goals of any company or client. Far better line is, 'I want to blend my creative skills with designing better homes or dresses.'
Brushing up on Education: An experienced designer or a fresher from an Art or Architecture school, either way, your education is important. If you took extra courses in Gothic and Roman Architectural History or did a certification course in contemporary European fashion, do use it add a few extra stars to your resume. Read about the job description before you write in unnecessary skills. The days of working hours on a easel or huge sheets of paper are gone. Most designers are expected to be well versed with latest computer tools. Be it Coreldraw, InDesign or Photoshop. Add them on your designer resume.
Ramp up the Lights: The spotlight on designer must be his designing skills. Sticky note style sections about your best clients or projects would put the spotlight on you. But don't daze them with too many lines of information though. A circular chart or a pie chart with weightage on the best achievements quickly gets noticed in the designer world.
A graph of your productivity, your focus, your humor and number of coffee cups, clearly shows that you are creative and target oriented. A time line shows your career path with respect to your previous employment and projects.
If you have specific experience in leading a team of designers for a advertisement campaign, it must be shown on your designer resume. It will help you move to a senior position. On the other hand, if you are a fresher and have freelanced as a designer, do offer references for the work.
Do have a look at sample professional designer resumes, before you make your own. Remember to keep your designer resume simple and stupid.
Following are the list of design resumes: