About This Resume

A resume alone isn't likely to win a design job if the portfolio is thin, but if you're one of many applicants with solid work, a clear resume can be what gets an art director to open your portfolio and stay there. That's because designers are more than just their best projects. The resume shows who you worked for, what kind of briefs you handled and how long clients or employers kept you. Whether you design in-house, at an agency or for your own freelance clients, its main task is to send the right reader to the right work.

Art directors usually check the link first. Then they read for the kind of work you do (packaging, brand identity, retail signage, digital ads, publications) and whether you can take a project from brief to finished files without much hand-holding. Print production knowledge still matters for many in-house jobs, since a file that fails at the printer costs real money. Software gets a quick look last.

What to Include

  • A portfolio link at the top, next to your email, that opens on your strongest work
  • The kinds of work you do: brand identity, packaging, print, social and digital ads, presentations or motion
  • Named projects with a result, such as a packaging redesign that won new store placements
  • Software, named the way postings name it: Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Figma, After Effects
  • Print production skills, such as preparing press-ready files, dielines and color proofs, if you have them
  • Freelance work grouped into one entry, with a few named clients and dates
  • Awards, juried shows or published work, if they are recent

Graphic Designer Resume Sample

Sample resume. The person, employers and contact details are fictional.

Bartosz Wojcik

Graphic Designer, Packaging and Brand
Pittsburgh, PA | bartosz.wojcik@example.com | (555) 016-5520

Summary

Graphic designer with seven years in packaging, brand identity and retail signage, in-house and at an agency. Takes projects from the brief to press-ready files and knows what a printer needs before the first proof comes back.

Experience

Senior Graphic Designer, Hollowbrook Snack Company, Pittsburgh, PA 2021 to present

  • Redesigned packaging for a 14-flavor pretzel line, which gained shelf space in 1,200 more grocery stores after the refresh.
  • Wrote the brand's first style guide and trained the marketing team on its templates, cutting outside design costs by about $40,000 a year.
  • Prepare dielines and press-ready files for every launch; caught a color-profile error at proof that would have meant reprinting 60,000 bags.
  • Work with sales, legal and the plant on label copy and nutrition panels, and keep every approved version on file.

Graphic Designer, Ferrous & Finch Creative, Pittsburgh, PA 2018 to 2021

  • Designed brand identities, trade show booths and social ads for more than 20 regional clients, from a credit union to a youth hockey league.
  • Built a menu template system for a restaurant group that let their staff change prices without calling the agency.
  • Presented concepts to clients at weekly reviews and turned revisions around within two business days.

Freelance Designer, Self-employed, Pittsburgh, PA 2016 to 2018

  • Designed album covers, gig posters and can labels for local bands and a small brewery while finishing school.
  • Handled quotes, invoices and print orders directly with each client.
  • Won first place in a regional student poster competition in 2017.

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Monongahela School of Art and Design, 2018

Skills

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Figma, After Effects (basic), Packaging dielines and prepress, Color management and press checks, Brand style guides, Hand lettering

Portfolio

  • wojcikdesign.example.com: packaging, brand identity and signage

Awards

  • Gold award, packaging category, Allegheny Design Club, 2023

Tips for Your Graphic Designer Resume

  • Keep the layout simple enough for screening software to read. Many employers run resumes through a system that can scramble columns, text boxes and icons, so save the visual flair for the portfolio.
  • If you like to email a designed PDF straight to an art director, keep a plain one-column version as well for online forms.
  • Pair each bullet with a project in the portfolio and use the same project name in both places, so a reader can move from one to the other without hunting.
  • The projects you list may show your style, but more importantly they should show what changed for the client, such as a label that earned more shelf space or a menu template that saved a restaurant's staff an hour a week.
  • Skip skill bars and star ratings for software. They look designed but tell a reader nothing, and a plain list of the tools you use every week says more.
  • Give freelance work the same treatment as a staff job, with a title, dates and three or four bullets. If you do not have much staff experience yet, you should also include school projects and competition entries following the same format.
  • Reorder the portfolio for each application. A packaging company should see packaging first, and a software company should see interface and web work first.

Next steps: the resume writing guide covers every section in detail, and the template library has layouts for other fields and career stages.