Sales, marketing and creative
Graphic Designer resume example
Designers are tempted to make the resume the portfolio. But many companies read resumes through a tracking system first, and two column, graphic heavy layouts often come out scrambled. This example keeps the resume clean and readable, and lets a portfolio link do the showing.
Opens in the Sembis editor with this example filled in, on the free Modern template. Replace the details with yours and download an ATS friendly PDF. No card needed.
An example: the person and employers are made up.
Graphic Designer resume summary examples
Two or three sentences at the top of your resume that say who you are, what you’re good at and what you’ve achieved. Pick the one closest to your level and swap in your own facts.
Communications design graduate with internship work in social and print design. Strong in typography, Figma and Adobe Creative Cloud, with a portfolio of brand and editorial projects.
Graphic designer with 5 years in brand identity and packaging for consumer brands, including a launch now sold in 2,000 stores.
Senior designer and art director with 10 years leading brand systems for national retailers. Manages a team of three designers and works directly with marketing leadership.
More in the guide: how to write a resume summary.
Bullet points for a graphic designer resume
Strong bullets start with an action verb, say what you did, and end with a result someone can measure. Use these as patterns, with your own numbers.
Stuck for the first word? See 180+ resume action verbs.
- Designed brand identities for 14 clients, including logos and guidelines
- Led packaging design for a product line sold in 2,000 stores
- Created a campaign system that lifted email click rates 24%
- Built Figma templates that halved production time for recurring assets
- Produced social, web and print assets for 20+ accounts a month
- Presented concepts to clients and handled feedback through final delivery
- Prepared print ready files and managed proofs with printers
- Created a brand guide adopted by a 200 person company
Skills to put on a graphic designer resume
Tracking systems match your resume against the words in the job posting, so list the skills you really have using the posting’s own terms. Hard skills belong in a skills section; show soft skills through your bullet points.
Hard skills
- Brand identity
- Typography
- Layout
- Packaging design
- Illustration
- Figma
- Adobe Illustrator
- Photoshop
- InDesign
- After Effects
- Print production
- Design systems
Soft skills
- Creativity
- Receiving feedback
- Client presentation
- Attention to detail
- Time management
- Collaboration
How to write a graphic designer resume
01
Keep the resume plain, the portfolio beautiful
A one column resume reads cleanly in any tracking system. Put your design skill in the portfolio, and the portfolio link at the top.
02
Write results, not just deliverables
"Lifted click rates 24%" or "sold in 2,000 stores" shows your design worked, not just that it existed.
03
Skip skill bars and icons
Rating yourself 4 of 5 in Photoshop tells a reader nothing, and parsers can't read graphics. List tools in words.
04
Check what a tracking system sees
Before you apply, run your finished resume through the free ATS resume checker to see the exact text a parser pulls out, and fix anything that comes out scrambled.
Tailor it to each graphic designer job
Paste a job posting into Sembis to see which of its keywords your resume is missing, and let AI suggest rewrites you approve one by one.
