Free Downloadable Graphic and Web Design Resume Templates and Expert Writing Tips

9 Graphic and Web Design Resume Examples

Every design resume serves a different objective and helps you accomplish alternative goals. Traditionally, resumes come in three formats: chronological, functional and combination. Each format highlights either your graphic and web design skills or experience.

We’ve designed some graphic and web design resume examples for each format. Let’s browse through them and discuss the pros or cons of each.

Chronological resume

The most well-known resume layout, the chronological format is apt for creative professionals with over a decade of relevant industry experience. This format focuses more on the expertise and accomplishments garnered in your work history over your mastered skills.

Refrain from using the chronological layout if you have career gaps or are an industry novice. We advise incorporating this format for the following graphic and web design designations:

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  1. Art director: Savier’s resume is the perfect example of a chronological format as it stresses the tasks accomplished in his work history. Seasoned professionals let their experience do the talking by detailing their job tasks and accomplishments in their resumes. By utilizing the reverse-chronological timeline, you also highlight your career growth and impress recruiters.
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  2. Creative director: Creative directors should have superb creative abilities and require excellent collaborative skills, traits which must be displayed in their resume. In Hans’ resume, the focal point is his work history, so he ensured to showcase his leadership and team management expertise in both the work history and skills sections. Notice how there are many details under each job while the education and skills are simply listed.
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  3. Web designer: Web designers have to craft visually compelling webpages requiring specialized coding or programming language knowledge. This chronological resume highlights Glory’s web design expertise in the work history section. Since she has consistent work experience in the same industry, it makes sense to display her extensive career trajectory in this reverse-chronological design.

Combination Resume

The combination format combines the strengths of chronological and functional formats, meaning you can utilize this format to give equal weight to your skills and career history. Candidates with transferable skills and significant job accomplishments can opt for combination resumes even with limited industry experience. So, if you’re planning to change careers or industries, have more than three but less than 10 years of experience, or have gaps between jobs, this is a good format to choose. We recommend this layout for the following designations:

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  1. Graphic designer: Candidates with entry to midlevel industry experience can find combination resumes beneficial. Most companies looking to hire graphic designers expect them to have practical knowledge of design and editing applications such as Adobe Creative Cloud software. By adding a summary of qualifications as shown in this example, you can detail any specialized skills right before launching into your work history.
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  2. Junior UI/UX designer: Quintin’s junior designer resume shines a light on his design and project management skills alongside his job history. Through combination resumes, candidates can easily expand on their industry-specific or transferable skills that make them right for the job.
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  3. Web designer (managerial): Mallory’s resume organizes her work experience and skills in order of relevance. This combination resume is ideal for candidates seeking senior roles by listing relevant experiences or accomplishments first. You can detail any accomplishments based on skill, but avoid repeating similar skills throughout your resume. Additionally, design professionals must list out specializations such as Photoshop, HTML or WordPress.

Functional resume

The functional or skills-based resume format focuses more on a candidate’s skills rather than their job history. Industry novices, freelancers and candidates with long work gaps can utilize this resume format for their benefit.

Unlike chronological and combination formats, functional resumes don’t detail a candidate’s work history. Functional layouts emphasize your skills by detailing them at depth and simply listing your job titles along with the place and year of employment. If you’re applying for an entry-level position, you can utilize this format by playing upon relevant design skills.

This format may not be for everyone. However, we suggest incorporating it for the following graphic and web design designations:

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  1. Creative director (managerial): Marilyn has not only had employment gaps but has also moved to a different creative department. However, Marilyn’s resume gives a comprehensive picture of relevant skills and lists the work experience in the end. By going into detail of her professional skills such as creative thinking and research, shedraws the focus away from her limited creative direction experience.
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  2. Graphic designer (freelance): Freelancers can rely on functional resumes to shed light on their qualifications and industry-specific skills. Serena’s resume starts by detailing her qualifications and skills such as sketching and partnership, before jumping to the limited job experience.
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  3. UX designer: A UX designer integrates research, visual design, coding, and branding skills to create a first-class product experience for users. This functional layout gives a thorough explanation of the candidate’s relevant UX skills while simply listing their work history at the end. The recruiters, therefore, get a clear understanding of the candidate’s technical skills even though they lack relevant industry experience.