resume project

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Yekaterina Grishchenko

Design Strategy:

I began this project with an open mind, just like I do with my personal blog: just let the ideas seep from my head onto the keyboard. I am a writer, a dual major in Public Relations and International Relations, and as a result, these aspects tend to come out in all of my projects (my writings tend to be long with a creative curve thrown in them and I almost always tie in a story or example pertaining to my world travels). Seeing as a resume is the ideal place to put these attributes, I was not the least bit worried. The worry only came in when it came to the design. Sure, I have designed a few computer projects as creative Christmas gifts, but when it comes to my future and paycheck, the last thing I want people in the “real world” to think is that I am boring.

I have always been creative and my style is somewhat elegant, or some may even say that most of writing style (and any style I have, for that matter) has a bit of an intimate-like flair. I believe that trying to show this on paper is somewhat difficult without people interpreting it as vulgar; therefore I made sure to steer away from any flamboyant colors, typefaces or even the design in itself. Career wise, I do want people to know that I am mature, dedicated and organized, but how much do you hear that in resumes and applications? Therefore, it was important for me to find a style, typeface, color and word bank that is simple, clean, clear and all-in-all attractive. After deciding on a wordmark, I matched my other headers and the dates to its size (in length) to make it seem as though there were a line drawn straight down from the end of my name. The “meat” of the resume matches the length of my contact information (after I had moved it from my initial idea: see below) to make it seem as though there were a bigger column (almost like a 2/3, 1/3 style without the actual columns). I also added horizontal lines to separate the sections; for a more organized look. I think this is an easy, clean and elegant design, just like I had wanted.

Color:

So I began with the idea of color. My two favorite colors are plum and deep red. I spent almost an entire day playing around with these colors thrown onto some “filler text” and came to the conclusion that plum is not a suitable color for text, but red (more specifically C= 15 M= 100 K=0) when combined with an 83% tint, is quite easy on the eyes and not to mention, a warm/inviting color. However, I did not want my resume to look as if it had been corrected by some angry professor, so I chose to use the red sparingly (only for the headers and a little to add some contrast to my contact information). After deleting the purple mess on the page, I realized that black font is not only traditional but easiest to read. Therefore, I was done with color.

Content:

Next, I worked on my word bank. I have only held one job, working as a receptionist for my mom’s spa and since that does not fit into the realm of Public Relations nor is it concerned with International Relations (despite the name of the family company being Royale European), I plucked out the words that illustrated my writing, representational and organizational skills. The international part of me wasn’t hard to sneak in there as I did work for a non-profit called Help Cuba Now this past summer and I am fluent in Russian (which I hear is a desired skill in today’s workforce). While I am involved in a few major student organizations, I haven’t done as much work for them as I would like to. Therefore, writing this resume was helpful in helping me realize that. But I did mention the grunt work that I have done so far; while it may not be impressive, internships are always looking for someone willing to do it, right?

Typeface:

Similar to my way of choosing my font color, I spent almost an entire day choosing my typeface. I wanted a typeface with many options, because if it were up to me I would flood my resume with 10 different families, in attempt to make it interesting and to add a lot of contrast. Kepler std has many variations and its simplicity caught my eye. The x-height is not very large but I have asked around and no one seems to be bothered by it. For some reason, I think it has an elegant flair to it and as silly as it sounds- it matches my personality. Despite the font’s many variations, I surprised myself in only using “medium condensed” and “bold condensed” (I guess I like condensed). I chose Helvetica Neue for the first letter of my first and last name for my wordmark, because after at least 50 sketches, I knew I wanted to mold the “Y” and “G” together somehow. So I either needed a cursive font or a simple, bold one (according to my sketches). I played around with the cursive and it just seemed too difficult to read, therefore Helvetica seemed like an appropriate choice. In order to add repetition, I used a smaller sized (19pt instead of 72pt) Helvetica Neue in my headers. The smallest font I used was a 12pt for my contact info, which I initially wanted to go down vertically from the merged “YG” of my name, but after some feedback, I decided it looked too awkward. Therefore, I just downsized the font and had my contact info run horizontally from my name.