9 Creative Resume Design Tips (With Template Examples)

If you’re hunting for that dream role at a creative company you’re going to want to dust off your old resume and give it a modern refresh. But how can you make sure that—out of all the applicants—it’s your resume that catches your future employer’s eye? 

Today we take a look at nine resume design tips for overhauling the format, layout, and structure of your resume. Discover fantastic ideas for injecting creativity into your resume design without compromising on professionalism. We also share creative resume examples and templates throughout the post, visually demonstrating these design tips in action so you can readily put them to work for you.

When you're ready to create your own resume, check out this tutorial on designing a creative resume in Adobe InDesign. You can also browse the full selection of creative resume templates on GraphicRiver to get even more inspiration.

Tip 1: Use Columns to Maximize on Space

One thing that is an absolute nightmare for employers tasked with trawling through resumes by the bucketload is encountering resumes that are more than one page long. 

Sure, you might want to go into detail about that part-time training course you took seven years ago, but, frankly, all your future employer wants to know is how that qualification is relevant to the job you’re applying for. 

The best advice for putting together the content of your resume? Keep it short and sweet. Edit out qualifications and details that are irrelevant to the role. You’ll find that editing your text down to fill just one page can be tricky, but it’s well worth it—you’ll appear concise, organized and you’ll also be highlighting only the most important, and best, information about yourself. This is going to make your resume easy-to-digest and a doddle to print (you’re welcome, environment). 

But how can you even begin to fit all your wonderful achievements on just one sheet of paper?

There are some design techniques you can employ to maximise the space on your one page, without forcing the layout to feel overcrowded. One tip is to try splitting your resume layout into two sections, with a narrow column running down the left- or right-side of the page, as shown below:

14 of the Best Sources for Creative Web Design Inspiration

Often the hardest part of any project is simply starting it. Ideas may be swimming around in your head, yet you may find it difficult to net one that works. Once you realize that banging your head against the desk won’t get you any further, the next step is usually to begin by looking at what others have done in the past.

Incorporating inspiration into your workflow is crucial. Browsing through work relevant to the task at hand regularly leads to an “Aha!” moment from which you can launch your entire project process. This step is key when your initiating website redesign. By drawing inspiration from around the web, you can ensure that your website integrates current trends and web standards.

There are an extensive number of resources for web design inspiration, including industry leaders like Smashing Magazine and Web Designer Depot. However, to encompass a variety of viewpoints, it's important to dig beyond these sources. If you’re looking to expand beyond the obvious go-to's, check out some of the best sources for creative web design inspiration below.

25 top-quality WordPress portfolio themes

It's now easier than ever to use platforms such as WordPress and Tumblr to create a highly effective and professional design portfolio page, which is easy to edit and navigate as you please, similarly to the way you would a blog page. 

You certainly don't need to be a web design wizard to create a decent looking portfolio site these days. There are a number of handy WordPress tutorials and elegantly designed portfolio WordPress themes out there to get you started on showcasing your work the best way possible.

Here we've picked 25 of the best quality WordPress portfolio themes around. Let us know how you get on with them via Facebook or Twitter!

Please note, as professional quality themes, these are paid options (most cost around $50, with the cheapest priced at $9 and the most expensive on our list costing $69). For free WordPress themes, read our Best free WordPress themes post. 

01. Bolec

If you like responsive, full-screen, simple sites then this theme is for you. Designed with portfolio and photography sites in mind, but suitable for loads of other applications, Bolec is powered by Twitter's Bootstrap framework and features plenty of page designs for you to work with.