Design DUDS: how NOT to do it.

You’re applying for a design job and you just know that you’re one of the hundreds of other “creative” hopefuls applying for the one role (that you may not want but you’re sick of designing ads for the yellow pages). There are a lot of articles out there telling you how to stand out from the crowd and how best to showcase your work — they’re great. Read them. In the meantime, here are some no-brainers for what NOT to do.

1. Don’t send anything in a word doc. You’re a designer! Adobe is the only program you work with and you hate Microsoft — it’s ugly, remember? I get a word doc resume, it goes straight to the bottom of the pile.

2. Layout matters, don’t clutter it up! Apply your design skills to your resume, cover letter and folio. You’d be surprised at how many people bugger this up and even if some of the work they’re showcase is good … bad layout is a sign of a lack of attention to detail. I want to hire the OCD designer who’s goes nuts over bad alignment and strategically uses white space.

3. Typography is a design skill so unless you really know what you’re doing, KEEP IT SIMPLE. If you have 2–3 different fonts, font weights, heading sizes etc you’re giving yourself away — it’s too much, it’s distracting. Keep it simple, keep it clean.

4. Don’t make us read the thing five times to get a good picture of what you’re about — because we probably won’t. Tell a visual story, make it sequential. Make the most important bits stand out — we don’t want to jump from work history to personal statement to references to folio and back to more work history … give me the boring details, quals, key skills etc but then give me the juicy stuff — and start with your very best work.

5. Don’t rely on your ‘real-world’ client work to get you through. A lot of students out there think that creative directors only want to see client-facing work. But unfortunately the danger in this is that the quality of your folio will then be based on the quality of your client briefs. Yes, I look for real world experience and pre-press skills, but I can teach that! I don’t want to teach someone to have a good eye for design. If you have a killer piece of creative work you did at uni that you think shows your genius, include it!

6. Don’t cut yourself short by thinking that we only want two page folios. Personally, if your work is good, I don’t care how long your folio is, as long as it’s under 5MB and doesn’t break my inbox. Like I said showcase your best — if it’s good and shows versatility, I could look all day.

7. Don’t send us to your personal website if it hasn’t been updated since 1994. You’re supposed to be digi-savvy — update your work.

8. Don’t send anything you’re not proud of. It should be safe to assume that every piece you include is something you’re chuffed with. If you must include something drab to showcases your technical skills — say that in the blurb. “Not the most creative project, but check out my HTML5 skills”.

9. Don’t send three files when you can send one. We don’t need separate cover letter, selection criteria and folio. You’re a professional communicator so put it all in the one place and make it easy to love your work.

10. Don’t forget to spell-check. Most of you will be working with copywriters, but we want someone who will read the text as opposed to just arranging it. Again, this is a really simple way to say you have a good eye for detail.

If all of this seems pretty basic, it’s because it is(!) but you’d be surprised how many folios are littered with the above mistakes and if you can get these things right, you’re already a cut above the rest.

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