One specific resume challenge you, as a digital designer, might face is effectively showcasing your diverse portfolio and technical skills within the limited space of a standard resume. Our guide provides targeted strategies to help you create a concise yet compelling narrative, ensuring your unique talents and design accomplishments stand out to potential employers.
- The most effective digital designer resume samples, reflecting on experience and skills.
- +10 simple, yet impactful methods to tailor your digital designer resume to the job advert.
- Using your professional achievements as the North Star to your unique value as a digital designer candidate.
- 'No one cares about your education nowadays …' Let's prove this statement wrong with the best-kept industry secrets to your education and certifications.
If the digital designer resume isn't the right one for you, take a look at other related guides we have:
- 3D Artist Resume Example
- Kitchen Designer Resume Example
- Game Designer Resume Example
- Magazine Designer Resume Example
- Creative Director Resume Example
- Plumbing Designer Resume Example
- Jewelry Designer Resume Example
- Associate Creative Director Resume Example
- Footwear Designer Resume Example
- Creative Services Manager Resume Example
Digital designer resume format made simple
You don't need to go over the top when it comes to creativity in your digital designer resume format .
What recruiters care about more is the legibility of your digital designer resume, alongside the relevancy of your application to the role.
That's why we're presenting you with four simple steps that could help your professional presentation check all the right boxes:
- The reverse-chronological resume format is the one for you, if you happen to have plenty of relevant (and recent) professional experience you'd like to showcase. This format follows a pretty succinct logic and puts the focus on your experience.
- Keep your header simple with your contact details; a headline that details the role you're applying for or your current job; and a link to your portfolio.
- Ensure your resume reaches an up-to-two-page limit, only if you happen to be applying for a more senior role or you have over a decade of relevant experience.
- Save your digital designer resume as a PDF to retain its structure and presentation.
Think about the location of your application – Canadian resumes, for instance, might follow a different structure.
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If you happen to have plenty of certificates, select the ones that are most applicable and sought-after across the industry. Organize them by relevance to the role you're applying for.
Essential sections that should make up your digital designer resume include:
- The header - with your contact details (e.g. email and telephone number), link to your portfolio, and headline
- The summary (or objective) - to spotlight the peaks of your professional career, so far
- The experience section - with up to six bullets per role to detail specific outcomes
- The skills list - to provide a healthy mix between your personal and professional talents
- The education and certification - showing your most relevant degrees and certificates to the digital designer role
What recruiters want to see on your resume:
- Proficiency in design software (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, Figma)
- Strong portfolio showcasing digital design work and projects
- Understanding of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design principles
- Experience with responsive and mobile-first design
- Knowledge of web development technologies (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript) for collaborative work with developers
What to include in the experience section of your digital designer resume
The resume experience section is perhaps the most important element in your application as it needs to showcase how your current profile matches the job.
While it may take some time to perfect your digital designer experience section, here are five tips to keep in mind when writing yours:
- Assess the advert to make a list of key requirements and look back on how each of your past jobs answers those;
- Don't just showcase you know a particular skill, instead, you need proof in the form of tangible results (e.g. numbers, percent, etc.);
- It's perfectly fine to leave off experience items that don't bring anything extra to your skill set or application;
- Recruiters want to understand what the particular value is of working with you, so instead of solely featuring technologies, think about including at least one bullet that's focused on your soft skills;
- Take care with wording each bullet to demonstrate what you've achieved, using a particular skill, and an action verb.
The below digital designer resume examples can help guide you to curate your professional experience, following industry-leading tips and advice.
- Led the redesign of the e-commerce website for Tech Solutions Inc., improving user experience and increasing conversion rates by 20% within six months.
- Collaborated with the marketing team to develop and implement a social media campaign using custom graphics which boosted engagement by 45% across all platforms.
- Managed a team of junior designers, providing guidance on user interface design principles which resulted in a 30% reduction in project turnaround time.
- Created over 150 animated product explainer videos for GreenMark Digital, aiding in elevating brand awareness and contributing to a 35% increase in year-over-year sales.
- Implemented responsive design practices for multiple clients' websites, ensuring optimal display across a range of devices and browsers.
- Optimized website assets and graphics for faster load times, improving average page load speeds by over 50%.
- Executed a complete brand overhaul for Lifestyle Brands Ltd., developing a fresh visual identity that rejuvenated the brand and led to a 25% growth in customer base.
- Designed and coordinated online marketing materials, aligning with strategic content calendars, to support quarterly sales goals.
- Mentored an intern in mastering Adobe Creative Suite, which helped in developing company collateral and reducing dependencies on external design agencies.
- Overhauled user interface design for Global Reach Tech's flagship product, leading to a 40% improvement in user satisfaction surveys.
- Conducted A/B testing for email marketing campaigns that informed adjustments increasing click-through rates by an average of 22%.
- Initiated a weekly design workshop series for non-design staff which enhanced the overall design sensibility within the company.
- Pioneered an interactive augmented reality campaign for NextGen Apparel, engaging users and leading to a viral social media effect with over 1 million interactions.
- Coordinated with developers to integrate design with back-end systems, ensuring seamless functionality for all digital assets.
- Streamlined design processes with the introduction of a cloud-based asset management system, cutting down asset retrieval times by 60%.
- Spearheaded the mobile-first redesign of QuickFinances Inc.'s customer portal, enhancing user experience and achieving a 40% decrease in support tickets related to website usability.
- Devised and executed a complete visual content strategy for the company blog and outreach platforms, resulting in a 120% increase in organic traffic.
- Developed a suite of cross-platform compatible email templates for marketing, reducing email development time by 30% and increasing open rates by 15%.
- Conceptualized and executed an immersive 3D virtual tour for RealEstate Ventures, increasing online engagement and contributing to a 10% uptick in online property inquiries.
- Enhanced cross-functional team workflow through the implementation of design system standards, reducing time-to-market for new product features by 20%.
- Contributed to the successful launch of a multi-platform mobile application which gained 100,000 downloads within the first month of release.
- Designed an interactive e-learning platform for SkillGrowth Education Inc., which attracted over 50,000 new users in the first year.
- Synchronized branding efforts across all digital channels, solidifying the company's online identity and increasing user recognition.
- Implemented user feedback loops into the design process, significantly enhancing the usability of core features based on customer input.
The following content includes information from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. The data represents the top responsibilities present on the task lists for digital designer professionals.
Top Responsibilities for Digital Designer:
- Collaborate with management or users to develop e-commerce strategies and to integrate these strategies with Web sites.
- Collaborate with web development professionals, such as front-end or back-end developers, to complete the full scope of Web development projects.
- Communicate with network personnel or Web site hosting agencies to address hardware or software issues affecting Web sites.
- Conduct user research to determine design requirements and analyze user feedback to improve design quality.
- Confer with management or development teams to prioritize needs, resolve conflicts, develop content criteria, or choose solutions.
- Create searchable indices for Web page content.
- Create Web models or prototypes that include physical, interface, logical, or data models.
- Design, build, or maintain Web sites, using authoring or scripting languages, content creation tools, management tools, and digital media.
- Develop and document style guidelines for Web site content.
- Develop new visual design concepts and modify concepts based on stakeholder feedback.
Quantifying impact on your resume
- Highlight the total number of successful projects and designs completed to demonstrate experience and productivity.
- Include quantifiable user engagement metrics to show the effectiveness of your designs.
- Mention percentage improvements in user experience or customer satisfaction from before to after your design implementation.
- Showcase revenue or sales increases attributed to your design improvements to indicate direct business impact.
- Quantify the scale of your designs by listing the number of users or the size of the audience that interacts with your work.
- Detail the efficiency of your workflow by indicating any reduction in development time due to your design processes.
- Document any cost savings achieved through your design optimizations or tool selections.
- Present any awards or recognitions you've received with the number of competitors to imply the level of distinction.
Action verbs for your digital designer resume
Four quick steps for candidates with no resume experience
Those with less or no relevant experience could also make a good impression on recruiters by:
- Taking the time to actually understand what matters most to the role and featuring this within key sections of their resume
- Investing resume space into defining what makes them a valuable candidate with transferrable skills and personality
- Using the resume objective to showcase their personal vision for growth within the company
- Heavily featuring their technical alignment with relevant certifications, education, and skills.
Remember that your resume is about aligning your profile to that of the ideal candidate.
The more prominently you can demonstrate how you answer job requirements, the more likely you'd be called in for an interview.
Recommended reads:
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Bold the names of educational institutions and certifying bodies for emphasis.
Key hard skills and soft skills for your digital designer resume
At the top of any recruiter digital designer checklist, you'd discover a list of technical competencies, balanced with personal skills.
Hard or technical skills are your opportunity to show how you meet the essential responsibilities of the role. The ability to use a particular job-crucial technology or software would also hint to recruiters whether you'd need a prolonged period of on-the-job training - or you'd fit right in the job.
But to land your dream role, you'd also need to demonstrate a variety of soft or people resume skills . Employers care about soft skills as they show how each candidate would fit into the team and company culture.
Both types of skills are specific and to best curate them on your resume, you'd need to:
- Create a skill section within which you showcase your hard and soft skills and present how they help you succeed.
- List specific examples of projects, tasks, or competitions, within which your skill set has assisted your results.
- Soft skills are harder to measure, so think about situations in which they've helped you thrive. Describe those situations concisely, focusing on how the outcome has helped you grow as a professional.
- Metrics of success - like positive ROI or optimized workplace processes - are the best way to prove your technical and people skills.
Take a look at some of digital designer industry leaders' favorite hard skills and soft skills, as listed on their resumes.
Top skills for your digital designer resume:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe XD
Sketch
Figma
InVision
HTML5
CSS3
JavaScript
Responsive Design
Creativity
Attention to Detail
Communication
Collaboration
Time Management
Problem Solving
Adaptability
Critical Thinking
Empathy
Open-mindedness
Next, you will find information on the top technologies for digital designer professonals from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Top technologies for Digital Designer’s resume:
- Bootstrap
- React
- Blackboard software
- Transact-SQL
- Apache Maven
- Oracle Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition J2EE
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If you're in the process of obtaining your certificate or degree, list the expected date you're supposed to graduate or be certified.
The digital designer resume sections you may underestimate: certifications and education
Your education and certifications provide insight into both your technical capabilities and personal attributes, such as perseverance. When crafting your digital designer resume, consider how you present these elements:
- For your higher education degrees, prioritize listing those most relevant to the job or indicative of your academic dedication;
- Include applicable coursework as a stand-in for relevant experience or if it might impress recruiters;
- Include incomplete higher education only if it's pertinent to meeting job requirements;
- If your degree is from a renowned university, mention how often you made the Dean's list to underline academic excellence.
Regarding certifications, it's not necessary to list all of them. Instead, match up to three of your most recent or significant certificates with the technical skills required in the job description.
Below, we've selected some of the top industry certifications that could be vital additions to your digital designer resume.
The top 5 certifications for your digital designer resume:
- Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) - Adobe
- Certified digital designer (CDD) - American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
- User Experience (UX) Design Certificate - Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g)
- Certified Professional in Web Design (CPWD) - International Webmasters Association (IWA)
- Certified Graphic Design Specialist (CGDS) - Graphic Design Certification (GDC)
The content below includes information from "O*NET OnLine" by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. The data represents the top associations for digital designer professionals.
Top US associations for a Digital Designer professional
- American Webmasters Association
- Association for Computing Machinery
- Association for Information Science and Technology
- CompTIA
- Computer Graphics Society
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Bold the names of educational institutions and certifying bodies for emphasis.
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Writing the digital designer resume summary or objective: achievements, keywords, dreams, and more
Deciding on whether to include a resume summary or resume objective should entirely depend on your career situation.
If you have:
- Plenty of relevant achievements you'd like to bring recruiters' focus to, make use of the resume summary. Ensure each of your achievements is quantified with concrete proof (e.g. % of cases solved).
- Less applicable experience, utilize the resume objective. Within the objective include a few noteworthy, past successes, followed up by your professional dreams.
As a bonus, you could define in either your digital designer resume summary or objective what makes you the perfect candidate for the role.
Think about your unique hard and soft skills that would make your expertise even more important to the job.
These digital designer professionals have completely covered the formula for the ideal resume introduction:
Resume summaries for a digital designer job
- With over five years of experience as a digital designer for a leading ecommerce platform, I've honed expertise in Adobe Creative Suite and UX/UI principles, having elevated the user experience leading to a 30% increase in customer engagement.
- As a seasoned Graphic Designer pivoting to Digital Design, I bring a decade's worth of visual storytelling acumen, with proficiency in Illustrator and Photoshop, ready to leverage my aesthetic skills into immersive digital experiences.
- A Software Developer with eight years in tech startups, I am transitioning to Digital Design with a robust coding background, including front-end technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, eager to merge technical and design talents.
- Equipped with four years in marketing and a passion for design, I’m transferring my skills into a digital designer role to craft resonating digital content using my strong suit in Adobe Creative Cloud and keen eye for market trends.
- Aiming to carve out a career in Digital Design, my objective is to apply my fresh perspective, dedication to learning cutting-edge design software, and energy towards creating compelling digital experiences that resonate with audiences.
- As an entry-level enthusiast with a recent certification in digital arts, my objective is to contribute my creativity and up-to-date knowledge of design technologies to produce innovative digital content while growing with a dynamic team.
Average salary info by state in the US for digital designer professionals
Local salary info for Digital Designer.” Source: My Next Move, National Center for O*NET Development. Accessed 10/15/2024
| State | Average Salary (in USD) |
|---|---|
| US National Average | $98,540 |
| California (CA) | $127,760 |
| Texas (TX) | $105,760 |
| Florida (FL) | $80,150 |
| New York (NY) | $117,090 |
| Pennsylvania (PA) | $78,920 |
| Illinois (IL) | $69,750 |
| Ohio (OH) | $80,100 |
| Georgia (GA) | $97,820 |
| North Carolina (NC) | $83,040 |
| Michigan (MI) | $73,180 |
Showcasing your personality with these four digital designer resume sections
Enhance your digital designer expertise with additional resume sections that spotlight both your professional skills and personal traits. Choose options that not only present you in a professional light but also reveal why colleagues enjoy working with you:
- My time - a pie chart infographic detailing your daily personal and professional priorities, showcasing a blend of hard and soft skills;
- Hobbies and interests - share your engagement in sports, fandoms, or other interests, whether in your local community or during personal time;
- Quotes - what motivates and inspires you as a professional;
- Books - indicating your reading and comprehension skills, a definite plus for employers, particularly when your reading interests align with your professional field.
Key takeaways
- The logic of your resume presentation should follow your career highlights and alignment with the role;
- Curate information within different sections (e.g. summary, experience, etc.) that helps highlight your strengths;
- Exclude from your resume irrelevant experience items - that way you'd ensure it stays no longer than two pages and is easy to read;
- Dedicate space within the summary, experience, and/or achievements to highlight precisely why you're the best candidate for the role via your previous success;
- Both your technical and people capabilities should also play a crucial role in building up your digital designer application. Prove your skill set in various resume sections.
