Whether your aspirations are to earn top dollar as a freelancer or to land a lucrative job with a prestigious firm, there’s one huge obstacle for you to overcome: the web design arena is ridiculously competitive.
Sure, you might have the design skills required for the job at hand, but how do you get your foot in the door? And what do you do if nobody is taking any notice of you? It’s the classic catch-22 situation: need experience to get a job; need a job to get experience.
But standing out from a crowded applicant pool isn’t unique for those working in web design – in fact, it applies to all industries. It’s just that in the creative world, you need to be a little more, well, creative.
Landing your dream job starts with your resume. I’m telling you now: a boring MS Word document you threw together in 12th grade and continued to update simply won’t cut it.
Fortunately, you’re in luck: I’ve put together a collection of over 20 free resume templates to help web designers stand out from the crowd. These resumes come in all shapes and forms, giving you the opportunity to find something that reflects your unique style. The templates are all available from Behance, one of the best places to showcase your creative skills, as well as to discover the work of up-and-coming talents.
It’s also worth pointing out that the vast majority of these templates are available in PSD format. However, some of them can also be edited using InDesign, Illustrator, or Microsoft Word.
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Free Resume Templates
- 1.1 1. Mint Resume Design
- 1.2 2. Dark Theme Resume Template
- 1.3 3. Mint Self Promotion Resume Template
- 1.4 4. Nawas Sharif Resume Template
- 1.5 5. Ultra Minimal Resume Template
- 1.6 6. Al Rayhan Resume Template
- 1.7 7. Jahangir Alam Jisan Resume Template
- 1.8 8. Zippy Pixels Resume Design Template
- 1.9 9. Graphics Fuel Resume Template
- 1.10 10. Pixeden Resume Design Template
- 1.11 11. Ola Hamdy Resume Design Template
- 1.12 12. Creative Professional Resume Template
- 1.13 13. Swiss Style Resume Template
- 1.14 14. Fay Zodiac Resume Template
- 1.15 15. Den Serduke Business Resume Template
- 1.16 16. Light Minimal Resume Template
- 1.17 17. Ahmed Seneina Resume Template
- 1.18 18. Minimalistic Resume Template
- 1.19 19. Ashigul Islam’s Swiss Resume Design Template
- 1.20 20. Emiliance Ismailov’s Resume Design Template
- 1.21 21. Createer Team Resume Template Design
- 1.22 22. Alamin Mir Resume Template Design
- 2 Final Thoughts
Free Resume Templates
1. Mint Resume Design
Let’s start things off with this gorgeous, elegant mint number by designer Ira Vosorowa.
2. Dark Theme Resume Template
If elegance is not your thing, Ira has several other awesome resume templates in her collection. This is probably my favorite of her templates, with a striking dark skin and space for an attention-grabbing header image. The template is also available in two skins: neon pink and pale mint.
3. Mint Self Promotion Resume Template
Continuing with the mint color schemes, next up we have Paolo Pettigiani’s beautifully clean CV template.
4. Nawas Sharif Resume Template
Our next template is available in three colors: blue, yellow, and green. Designer Nawas Sharif has done an excellent job with this one, also creating a cover letter template guaranteed to grab potential employers’ attentions.
5. Ultra Minimal Resume Template
Saptarshi Nath’s awesome template uses a clean, simple, and minimal design. In particular, the striking green template is likely to make employers sit up and take notice – or feel free to design your own color scheme.
6. Al Rayhan Resume Template
Another beautiful, minimal resume template next, this time from designer Al Rayhan. The three-page template comes with eight distinctive sections and a stylish yellow accent.
7. Jahangir Alam Jisan Resume Template
This stunning resume template was put together by Jahangir Alam Jisan. The template oozes professionalism and incorporates a modern design with a clean red and blue color scheme. It also comes with three separate templates, with room for a portfolio, CV, and cover letter.
8. Zippy Pixels Resume Design Template
Zippy Pixels has put together a gorgeous collection of premium resume templates. The PSD version of this one, however, is available completely free of charge. The template looks premium-quality, comes in three color schemes, and includes a cover letter template, too.
9. Graphics Fuel Resume Template
Another bright and colorful resume template up next. It features a cool header design as well as prominent contact details. It’s also available in two colors.
10. Pixeden Resume Design Template
This creative resume was designed for maximum impact. The design feels modern and innovative, with the typography clearly the main design feature. The black-and-white version is available for free.
11. Ola Hamdy Resume Design Template
Ola Hamdy has created one of my favorite resume templates here, with two versions available – one soft pink, one light grey.
12. Creative Professional Resume Template
Now for one of my favorites, courtesy of PSD Freebies. This resume template screams professionalism while also showing some creative flair – the red-grey color scheme looks stunning.
13. Swiss Style Resume Template
Mike Bradshaw’s resume template also takes a more minimalist approach. Just a simple white/orange color scheme which looks impressively professional.
14. Fay Zodiac Resume Template
Next we have this resume template from Fay Zodiac – this has to be one of the coolest in this collection. The template uses an interesting layout with lots of fun fonts. It also includes business card designs, too.
15. Den Serduke Business Resume Template
This one is a simple-but-elegant design from Den Serduke. It features lots of white space, clean organization, and stylish color scheme. It also comes with a quirky business card design, too.
16. Light Minimal Resume Template
A super-minimal CV template up next, for those who’d prefer to let their skills and experience do the talking.
17. Ahmed Seneina Resume Template
We’re back to minimalist resume templates again, with this one designed by Ahmed Seneina. A simple design, sure, but it looks great.
18. Minimalistic Resume Template
A gorgeous two-column resume template from Ashiqul Islam here. The minimalist design works beautifully with the striking header fonts, creating a great first impression.
19. Ashigul Islam’s Swiss Resume Design Template
Another from Ashiqul Islam here. This one uses a similar minimal design, but this time, featuring a splash of color at the top of the bottom. This color can be fully customized, too.
20. Emiliance Ismailov’s Resume Design Template
A clean and stylish template from Emiliance Ismailov. The color scheme is eye-catching and professional. This template was also updated for 2016 recently, too.
21. Createer Team Resume Template Design
Next, Createer Team has assembled this pack of resume templates. Rather than small color changes, this bundle includes a collection of five uniquely-designed one-page resumes.
22. Alamin Mir Resume Template Design
Alamin Mir has created this ultra-professional resume template, targeted at web designers and creative individuals. It comes with three separate templates – CV, portfolio, and cover letter.
Final Thoughts
And that’s your lot – a run-down of 20+ free resume templates for web designers. If you have any styling tips for creating a custom resume, or you’d like to share your favorite template, let us know in the comments section below!
Article thumbnail image by liravega / shutterstock.com
Hi Shaun,
Cool!
Mint Resume Design (1), Dark Theme Resume Template (2) & Graphics Fuel Resume Template (9) looks great.
Fay Zodiac Resume Template (14), is too bleak for my taste.
superb templates !!
loved them
Love all the chit chat. Thanks for the info, everyone.
As a resume designer, it helps to hear what people really need.
I hate that job hiring has become so automated. I think it could be done better. Well, maybe a plain text resume is a good idea for uploads and pretty ones like these and the one I just made could do for in-person leave-behinds.
@Shaun Quarton
Thanks for shairing , Great Idea
I’m a recent graduate and a counselor told me not to put any designs on my resume because so many organizations now have software where you can upload your resume and it scans and pulls out your information. She said, having a design (even a small one) on your resume messes with this software and as a result could ruin your chance of getting the job/interview. She said a regular Word resume is best.
That being said, for print a lot of these are nice looking. Although I wish they didn’t have those graphs. Why would you put you only know half of something? It never made sense to me.
This was inspiring!
Many of these designs are inspiring, while few of them were disturbing and will not help anyone to land a job.
Thank you for write this good post and for sharing resume design trends.
Wow, nice 🙂 🙂
Don’t quite get this one. A resume with so much design takes away from the content. And, we’ve moved to a more sophisticated online resume, LinkedIn.
Also, I regularly read all the posts published by Elegant Themes. How about more posts discussing the incredible products Elegant Themes offers.
The Divi Nation podcasts are great and they’re getting better all the time.
Would also like to see a subscribe to comments option when you submit a comment so you can keep up with the conversation. I’m already subscribed to the blog posts.
Awesome resumes!
They look cool… in theory. My experience with these types of resumes is that there is not a lot of room for actual written text (i.e. bullet points about your successes for each job you’ve done). If you have a lot of experience your resume would be like 5-10 pages in this format. Also, printing a lot of these because of the background color is such a hog that I’m not sure if a lot of execs would appreciate it. I think they are great inspiration for a web-based version of your resume though… for the actual resume I’d stick to black text and white background… and just format everything very nicely to make yourself look professional.
Thanks for the post. Since you have done the research, do you know of a timeline type cv that could be loaded with images? Horizontal or vertical. A bit Facebooky perhaps. I’d like to show images of exhibitions and work that give an idea of development.
Here are some timeline plugins that might help. http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/five-of-the-best-wordpress-timeline-plugins
Terrific post ! Tks !
I want to say that I do appreciate this post and the effort of the all of the resume designers out there, it’s a bit much and most companies could care less “how” your resume works.
Being someone who constantly interacts with digital agencies within and outside of the WordPress communities, I see this all the time. Most of the folks that deal with the hiring want to be able to read your experience. They don’t want to see star bars, graphs or other garbage that takes of real estate on a resume.
Make it one page, a contact email and a website that shows off your work. Don’t put it on a resume, it’s a waste of time.
I’m not sure I 100% agree with this.
While some of these are WAY over the top for me, there are a couple that I, as a hiring manager, would’ve appreciated for some positions.
For instance: Many of these are way too over the top for someone applying to be a web developer, software engineer and even a web designer in most cases… unless you’re applying to a highly creative firm (ie: Adobe).
However, as a graphic designer who does work for print – the more minimalist designs on this post would give the hiring manager some nice insight to your abilities. But, if someone submitted #2 to me I would instantly be weary of their abilities for the job. While that layout might look okay as an online resume, there are very few instances where it’d actually work in print. If someone handed that to me as their resume, I’d probably throw it in the trash. They didn’t think about how it’d display on paper or how much ink they’d waste printing it.
Also, the fact that these are Photoshop files, instead of InDesign files, also makes me think that the designers that made these have no idea what they’re doing in terms of print design. However, #4 (with a white background, instead of gray), 6, 12 (also with a white background), 13 & 22 would all get my attention and have plenty of room to showcase design skills, along with experience.
It’s very interesting that only a handful of these resumes were made without a bleed, though. Most people don’t have printers that can actually reproduce these correctly and you’re going to have to print them undersized and manually trim the edges so the color is seamless. Most of these designs (without trimming them) would look really weird when printed, because they’d have a white outline on the page. These would look great if you’re able to have them all printed professionally and handed out in that manner, but if the agency will be printing them, they’re not going to take the time to do this and it may end up making your resume look even worse in their stack.
Thanks for the insight Alex.
I made a pretty cool one just with Divi
http://xyndigital.com/cv/
Well done!
Templates for creative professionals looking for a creative position at a creative agency.
Really?
Hello Shaun Quarton , Thanks for shairing , Great post
Somebody still has to explain to me how showing that I have “80% proficiency” in a field would in any way help me to promote myself. These percentages in skills are the worst thing that happened to portfolio pages in recent years.
You either HAVE a skill or HAVE NOT.
I’ve been mystified by that too. I mean what on earth would C++ Programming:70% mean? And who wants to hire 70% proficiency. Either you can build something or you can’t. And anyone claiming 100%….Pffff!
I am going to agree with you on that,
Completely agree with you both, too!
I am going to agree with you on that,
This is a great post for a creative professional looking for a resume template. But I still wonder what personnel experts say about these things. How creative can you get before you go over the line and they drop your resume in the trash can because it’s too “out there” ?? I suppose this varies by the type of job or even the type of company. But, for example, applying to a big company for a creative position (but the whole company isn’t in a “creative” field) — how do they receive such resumes? Is it a risk to use some of these?
Also — some of these are going to be very ink-heavy. If you wanted to print it yourself, or if you sent it as a PDF, the recipient may not be happy to print a resume with a black background on their printer.
Some things to think about . . .
I think it all depends on the job you’re going for. Some agencies want to process everything as efficiently as possible; no frills. Others want to see your personality and determine if you’re a good fit for their company culture. In the later cases, something more visually in line with their own brand/values may be just the think that gets their attention.
I think the minimalist ones are the best ones of the bunch. I would say the heavy on the ink ones would be best on a website.
Hi Shaun, thanks for this. Some of them really hurt my eyes 🙂 but most of them are really gorgeous.
Love this post! The only problem is that I’m such a newbie that I am somewhat confused about how to convert PSD into WordPress. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube, but I don’t have time to check them all out. Any recommendations on one or two good tutorials? Thank you in advance!
I’d be happy to help you do it Gary?
Hey Gary,
The idea here isn’t to convert these designs to WordPress. Though you could take some inspiration here and build something cool with Divi on a “resume” page. But these are literally just free PSD templates for print resumes.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Nathan