Junior graphic designer resume example

What recruiters look for

• A portfolio link that works: in the header, short, and opening on a phone. Most junior resumes are read only as far as that link.
• Production reliability: deadlines met, print files that pass preflight, templates followed. Juniors are hired to ship volume without errors.
• Range across formats: print, digital, social, packaging or signage. Name the formats so the reader can picture your week.
• Taking direction well: working inside brand guidelines and turning feedback into a better version, quickly.
• Craft basics: type, hierarchy and grids. The resume layout itself is the first sample a reviewer sees.

Writing the summary

Say where you have designed (in-house, agency, freelance), what you produce most, and one strength a creative lead would value, such as speed, layout or print production. Two sentences. Leave adjectives like “creative” out: the portfolio decides that.

Bullet points that work

Strong lines for this role, beyond the ones in the example. Borrow the shape and put in your own numbers.

• Designed 40 email headers and landing page banners for seasonal campaigns, all approved within two rounds of feedback.
• Built a library of 60 social templates in Figma that let the marketing team publish without a designer for routine posts.
• Retouched and color-corrected 500 product photos for the online store, matching them to printed packaging.
• Updated packaging for 14 products to a new brand system, coordinating dielines and proofs with two printers.
• Laid out a 48-page annual report from a writer’s draft in InDesign in three weeks, with paragraph and character styles throughout.
• Created event signage for a 2,000-person community festival, from banners to wayfinding, on a $3,000 print budget.
• Resized one campaign into 35 formats for print, web and social in a day by setting up a master file with linked assets.
• Prepared the brand style guide’s first edition (24 pages) from scattered files, now sent to every outside vendor.
• Caught a pricing error on a proof before a 90,000-copy print run, saving a reprint estimated at $11,000.

Skills to list

Certifications and licenses worth listing

• None required: no design job requires a certificate, and your portfolio does the convincing.
• Adobe Certified Professional (in InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop): a small plus for a first job, especially if you are self-taught or changing careers.

Length and format

One page. Put the portfolio link in the header, then summary, experience (internships count), education, and a short freelance or projects section if it shows work your job does not. A two-column layout keeps the tools list in the sidebar and the experience in plain sight.

Common mistakes

• Leaving out the portfolio link, or linking to a site that needs a password or shows unfinished work.
• Skill bars and percentages (“Photoshop 90%”). They tell a reviewer nothing and look dated.
• A resume so decorated that it is hard to read. Clean hierarchy is the design sample a creative lead wants.
• Listing school projects as if they were client work. Label them as student or self-initiated work.
• No sign of production skill. Print files, templates and deadlines are what juniors are hired for.