CREATIVE CV

Last year my CV was OK, but I knew I needed to update it with current illustrations and work experience. I also wanted to try and get it down to one page, so it could be easily sent with other promotional items. 

My second year CV doesn't reflect the direction my work has taken, and I want the design of my CV to emphasis the type of illustration I want to make- almost as if it is an extension of my portfolio. 

I started with an illustration that I wanted to feature on my CV and added information above- I chose the forest illustration because it is bright and bold, and also reflects the type of themes I enjoy drawing. Like my promotional items it also can appeal to both children illustration and older audiences. To match my business cards and promotional items, I used the font that has featured across everything. 

However, as I was writing straight onto the photoshop document I started to feel like the page looked jumbled and unorganised. I decided to look at a one page creative CV to help guide and inspire me.

I found this beautifully hand drawn CV by Alison Soye on Pinterest, and I immediately liked the friendly nature of her writing, as well as the organisation of the different categories.

I mainly liked how simply she had written the dates and places of where she had worked and where she had been, and I wanted to utilise this to make my CV more streamlined. I also was inspired to list my skills/interests, as on my last CV I used a star rating for Photoshop/Illustrator etc. I wanted to edit this as last year I remember Pauline Ascroft gave a talk about CVs, and said how rating yourself on certain skills let the employer know straight away that you are not experienced at something and it looks like you're shooting yourself in the foot!

The only thing I would do differently is put my experience/ education from the most recent at the top and least recent at the bottom, so the employee can see the most relevant thing straight away.

So I would make the same mistake as before, I very roughly wrote out ideas first before I went straight onto Photoshop.

With all this in mind I redid the CV, still using the illustration at the bottom. In the gap I added an extra snake, as it almost interacts with the text and draws the eye to the CV and text. I used colours from the illustrations to break up the text, so that when you read it you can easily see the difference between the date/ info etc.

To add a friendly tone, which I think you can get away with when writing an creative CV, I changed the 'work experience' 'education' etc titles to more informal ones:

I think my new CV looks fresh and neat compared to my old one, and the illustrations on it compliment my promotional items.

Last year I also spoke about making a folded CV that looked like a house, so I decided to try and develop that further.

I started with a really ROUGH outline ( I know what it means I swear) of how I wanted the inside to look:

And I painted some leaves and bricks to make into brushes on photoshop. This fits in with the aesthetic of my illustration style, and will make my house fit in with all my other items

I used the same font and writing inside the CV that I had used on my one page CV, but also added some handwritten titles to match the 'Meg's House' on the front. The handwritten elements add an even more creative look to this CV, and works with the hand painted house on the outside. I also added a little cat in the window- a nod to my other pieces of work (the calendar)

When folded the house really comes to life (so to speak). It's such a simple fold, but this house along with my tearable (not terrible!) calendar shows that I love to experiment with how paper can be handled, and I think it makes my work even more playful.

I think I would send these CV's to a children's book publisher- it is particularly fun and bright and has a charm to it that reflects my ability to illustrate for children.