What fun to be in an industry where almost anything goes! In advertising and the arts, you have a license to be creative with your résumé. After all, creativity is one of your strongest qualifications for the job. It is the need for this creativity that determines when résumés like the ones in this chapter are appropriate. Using a creative résumé takes a very special type of person. They are not for accountants, bankers, and executives.

Needless to say, these résumés are not scannable, but the chances of a gallery, museum, graphic art firm, or ad agency scanning your résumé are almost nonexistent. Scannability in creative industries is not an issue in almost all cases. When scannability is an issue, simply create an ASCII text file résumé and send it along with your creative version (see the Scannable Resume Design Guide).

No matter how creative you want to be, you must still keep readability in mind. If your audience can't read your résumé, what good is it? 

Here I most gratefully acknowledge the work of Gregg Berryman. I have in my library a copy of his book, Designing Creative Résumés (Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications, Inc., 1985). His book is a great resource for creative résumé ideas and, although it is out of print at this writing, it can be found in many city libraries.

• Sample 1
• Sample 2
• Sample 3

• Name
• Address
• Section Headings
• Dates
• Location
• Personal Information
• Fonts & Bullets
• Graphic Lines
• Images
• Paragraph Style
• Creative Resumes