A creative resume or curriculum vitae is one document you can’t skimp on. This is true for everyone, but especially for designers and other creative professionals.
When applying for a job, the first impression you create is strong and longest-lasting. The same is true when making contact with a new potential client. That first impression has to help you stand out from your competitors.
Most of the time, that first impression is made via an online application, your website, an email, or even through social media. Hopefully, you already have a strong portfolio website, either a personal portfolio or your freelance business site. And hopefully, your social media presence continue your personal or business brand look and feel. But what about your resume?
Most job applications ask applicants to attach a CV or a resume. And after initial, brief research on your website or social media accounts, a prospective client will often ask for a CV if they don’t find the information they need or if they need to present a list of freelancers to their boss.
As such, no matter if you’re searching for a job or trying to land new clients, your resume design could be what differentiates you from a competitor with similar skills and level of experience. The right kind of creative resume truly reflects the character, experience, and similar things in an expressive way.
The following are some excellent creative resume and CV examples to help get ideas flowing for your own resume design. Notice that some tend to remain more straightforward and business-like with a hint of creativity thrown in, while others go over the top in the creative aspect. Others strike a nice balance between the two extremes. Designers have discovered new methods to showcase the skills and attributes in a bold way. You can imagine a highly creative resume, design it and then showcase your skills and abilities to the whole world.
You will need to make a calculated decision on your own CV design. If your brand look and style of work is highly artistic, then, by all means, go all out. If, however, you’re applying for a job in a less creative field, you may want to tone down tons of graphics and colors, and stick with a more corporate look that still creatively reflects your own personal brand.
Matthew Jhon Creative Resume Template
This template is perfect for a designer who wants a resume that makes a strong first impression. You’ll have a place for your work experience highlights, as well as your education, skills, and contact info. The header and footer feature a stylish design. It comes as a Microsoft Word file (DOCX) and as a PDF.
Kesya Cole
This is one of the most creative and unique resume or CV templates that you’ll find. It’s colorful and also includes a small illustration, as well as some shapes and icons. It comes in Ai, EPS, and PSD formats.
Alex Buell Template
If you want to have a resume or CV that stands out, this template is an excellent choice. It features a little bit of color and some subtle but stylish design elements to impress viewers. You can use the template in Word, Illustrator, or Photoshop, and it also comes in PDF and EPS format.
Colorful Resume
Who says resumes have to be boring? This template uses a lot of color, especially in the header, to really stand out. It comes in vector format (Ai and EPS file formats) and also includes a template for a cover letter.
Charles Midleton Template
Here is another bright, colorful curriculum vitae template that is 100% guaranteed to stand out. It can be edited in Word, Photoshop, or Illustrator to quickly and easily create a beautiful resume. Shapes and colors make this design unique, but it also includes all of the needed details to be effective.
Anthony Arlo
This colorful template features a large header with a photo and shapes that make a nice background for your bio and contact info. It also displays your experience and skills in an attractive manner. Edit the template in Photoshop, Illustrator, or Word.
Lester Chandler
This package includes a two-page resume template, as well as a cover letter template. This design features bold black & white, large photos, and a clean design. It’s perfect for creative professionals who want a great-looking resume that will showcase their abilities.
Modern CV Resume
This template features a stylish design and a big header with a place for your photo. The skills section uses a creative way to display your most essential skills and your level of expertise. It also includes a nice cover letter template.
Darryl Philbin
This template is both creative and professional. It’s extremely well designed with a lot of style that will make sure you stand out. There’s a spot for a photo in the header and the download even comes with a photo filter so your photo will match the style shown in the preview above.
Mono Resume
We’ve looked at some examples of colorful resumes, but this one takes a different approach with a monochromatic color scheme. It’s prefect for creative professionals because the header is unique and interesting, allowing you to enter a photo. It’s also got plenty of room for all the important details about your experience and accomplishments.
Alan Querin
Here is another black & white design that definitely stands out from the typical resume. It uses typography and some well-designed content blocks to create a truly professional resume.
SRTP
If you want a resume or CV that will stand out without taking any extreme measures in terms of an unusual design, this one is a good option. It uses color and some nice design elements, but still has a clean look and feel. It comes in PSD, Ai, and EPS format.
Steven Gerard
This unique design includes a full-page photo with a greeting and a second page that includes the full resume or CV with a photo header. The full-page photo could be skipped if you just want the simple one-page option. It’s a well-designed and colorful template that you’ll love.
Mauro Haskey Template
This template uses a beautiful design and layout that features a small photo and brief profile in the sidebar. It includes all of the necessary details like contact info, work experience, and education. The skills section at the bottom uses star ratings to creatively display strengths in different areas.
Juandha Whitney
This clean and elegant template makes it easy to create a curriculum vitae with a professional look. You’ll be able to show off your strongest skills as well as your education and work experience.
Claire Ridley
Here is another very clean and professional resume template that also features a nice design. The header includes room for a photo and a brief bio before getting into the details of your experience and background.
Henry Silly Template
Present your qualifications in a clean and professional way with the help of this resume template. It comes in Illustrator format with five different color variations that you can choose from, and of course, you can also edit the colors if you’d like.
Pink Resume Template
Now, here is one that’s sure to be unique! The design uses a pink background, which is probably unlike any resume you’ve ever seen. It also includes all of the usual details, so it’s functional too.
AWR Resume
This template uses some splashes of color for a creative CV design. It includes space for a headshot, a skills section that utilizes star ratings, and an additional template for a cover letter. The download includes the designs in Ai and EPS formats.
Two-Page Resume Template
This template is not only creative in terms of the design and style, it’s also one of the few two-page templates you’ll see in this showcase. The first page includes the details about you and your skills, and the second page is focused on work experience and education. The templates come in Word and InDesign formats.
Indah Kusuma
This resume template uses a colorful header with a photo. The rest of the design is fairly clean and simple. You’ll also get a matching cover letter templates. The files can be editing in Word, Photoshop, or Illustrator.
The Peachy CV Resume Template
The Peachy template makes use of icons and content blocks to display your experience and qualifications in an attractive way. The header includes a spot for a small photo along with your name and contact info. This template is ideal for highlighting a few past jobs or specific experiences that you’ve gained.
Taylor Sheeran Template
This uses a stylish design that stands out from the typical resume without being too unconventional. The dark header and footer add contrast and visual interest. The header includes space for a small photo. It also comes with a template for a matching cover letter, which is sure to come in handy.
Carol Holmes
The layout of this resume template is pretty unique and is sure to make you stand out from other job applicants. It also comes with a cover letter template and can be edited easily in Microsoft Word.
Jim Halpert
Although it’s a fairly simple design, this CV is definitely unique. It makes excellent use of typography and gives you a solid template that could be used in a lot of different industries.
Anthony Silver
With the help of this template, you can get a very professional CV in no time. There’s a sport for your photo in the heard, and layout is beautifully-designed to show off your experience and skills. It is provided in InDesign file format.
Web Designer Resume Template
Web designers, this template is a fun way to present your resume of CV. It includes a spot for a QR code at the top, which is a unique touch. Of course, there’s also a section to show off your experience, and the skills section at the bottom presents a way to visually display your specific skills.
Walter Smith
With this template, you can pack plenty of detail into your resume or CV without a cluttered look. You’ll have a place for your work experience, education, skills, contact info, and references, as well as a brief profile and photo. It comes in four different color variations.
Creative Resume by Jahangir Alam Jisan
Jisan’s creative CV uses icons, color, and bold banners to add creativity to his resume design. Plus, the unusual layout helps the information to stand out well while still maintaining a professional and organized look.
My Resume by Soumitra Saxena
This is another creative resume design that shows off the designer’s humor as well as his wide range of skills. Even with the creative illustration and extra information, the design is still clean and organized, which says a lot about his engineering side as well.
Curriculum Vitae by Anton Yermolov
Both clean and colorful, Yermolov’s CV design stands out with neat columns and colorful icons. His illustrated self-portrait is a nice alternative to a photo and ensures it will look nice even if a client uses their own poor-quality printer to print a copy.
CV – Take a Look Inside by Amber Van Mieghem
Both the format and the fold of this CV design is fantastically creative. Amber does an excellent job of creating intrigue and keeping attention by leading to the next page with the fold.
Shameless Self-Promotion by Kyle Robertson
A personal logo is always a safe way to add some originality to a resume that needs to remain more on the corporate side. Robertson doesn’t stop there, though. His beautiful choice of fonts also adds to the appeal of his creative resume design.
My Resume by darthkix
Fitting a lot of information onto a single page is one of the more difficult parts of a resume, but darthkix solves this problem quite beautifully. The silhouette graphic on the background is a brilliant way to break up his information neatly but uniquely.
Resume by Yojna Shetty
I love how this creative resume organizes so much content so neatly onto a single page. At first glance, it is almost overwhelming, but the lines and other graphics help to draw the eye from one section to the next quite easily. It should not take very long for the viewer to go through it so each section and detail should be connected to the next one and everything should be displayed in a rather expressive and creative manner.
Self-Promotion by Syril Bobadilla
The bright colors in this creative resume by Bobadilla are stunningly balanced out by the excellent, clean layout of content. Plus, the custom fonts add a very nice, original touch to the entire design.
Curriculum_Vitae by Francisco Hidalgo
I highly urge you to visit Hidalgo’s Behance page to view his curriculum vitae in full effect, as the images above do not do his gorgeous illustration justice. You can build on this idea and design similar creative resumes that are more than just a resume. Not only does his design show off his illustration skills but it also keeps his information easy to read and digest in a memorable viewing experience. Beautiful!
Curriculum Vitae by Camila Soto
Handwritten fonts and illustrations are a stunning touch in this creative CV by Soto. I love how each section is divided into boxes. Different calligraphic fonts have been put to use, few items have been sketched and you get a colorful resume for your work.
Resume by Roberta Cicerone
I really love how this website resume could also double as a poster-like print resume design. Roberta does an excellent job of keeping a visitor scrolling with uniquely phrased section headers and dotted lines. Different geometrical figures and calligraphic fonts have been displayed in quite a skeptical and playful way. Her illustrations and custom fonts are stunning!
You Only Have a Few Seconds…
…to make a lasting first impression. How creative is your resume or CV design? Are you confident yours will stand out from the rest of the pile? If not, then you may want to use one of the creative resume and CV examples above to model your own design, but don’t forget to consider your audience. And have fun with it so that your creative passion shines through loud and clear.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Creative CV?
A creative CV or resume will show off your skills or experience in a way that sounds out from most text-based resumes. It may include color or a more unique visual design. If you’re in a creative industries, like designers, taking this approach may help you to get an interview.
How Do I Make My CV Creative?
The easiest way is to use one of the many templates showcased on this page. In just a few minutes, you can have a beautiful resume or CV that you can be proud of.
Are Creative Resumes a Good Idea?
If you’re in a creative field, taking a more original approach to your resume can be effective. However, in other industries you may be better off with a more traditional resume.
Do Companies Like Creative Resumes?
It really depends on the person who is receiving and reviewing the resumes. Look at it this way, many job openings receive at least 100 resumes. The creative approach is sure to makes your stand out and be noticed. Will it help every time? No. But getting noticed is an important step if you want to get an interview.
