Creative · Single column · ATS 4/5
Creative Professional CV template
Portrait, name and contact share one header line above a plain, parser-safe column.
Creative templates spend their design budget where a studio reviewer will notice it, which is the opposite of what an automated screen rewards — a trade-off worth making deliberately. It is a single-column layout with a portrait, so it suits markets where a photo is expected and stays readable if you switch the photo off.
Live preview of the Creative Professional template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.
The design
About the Creative Professional layout
Who it’s for
The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.
- Designers and art directors applying through job portals
- Marketing, content and brand professionals
- Creatives who want one CV that works everywhere
Key features
What is actually different about this template on the page.
- Three-part header with portrait and stacked contact
- Accent marker bar above every section heading
- Five-dot skill ratings that print in greyscale
- Single-column body an ATS can read end to end
ATS score 4/5 · Strong
How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system
At 4 out of 5 the substance comes through cleanly — headings, dates, employers and titles all parse — and the missing point is for styling that a small number of older systems simplify rather than read.
Sections stack in a single flow, so the order you set in the editor is the order the parser records: summary, then experience, then education, then whatever you put next.
A photograph is invisible to a parser and occasionally counts against you in US and UK screening. Turn it off for portal applications and keep it for the version you email directly.
For most applications this is safe. Where the employer is very large, or the advert names a specific tracking system, a plainer single-column layout removes the remaining doubt: compare it against the ATS CV templates, which trade this template’s styling for the highest possible parsing score.
- Reading order
- Single flow
- Headings
- Real text
- Tables
- None
- Images
- Photo only, optional
- Selectable text
- Yes
Scores are our own assessment of how a parser handles the layout — never a guarantee about one specific employer’s system.
In practice
Three situations Creative Professional is the right answer to
A named hiring manager
Sent to a person rather than a system: enough visual polish that the document looks considered on screen, and enough structure that it still parses if it is forwarded into a tracking system afterwards. The reader it was drawn for: Designers and art directors applying through job portals.
A portfolio in document form
Everything runs in one column, so a long list of projects and commissions keeps the sequence you chose — and the sequencing is part of the edit when the reader is a creative director.
A market where a photo is expected
Continental Europe, North Africa, the Gulf and much of Asia treat a photograph as part of a complete CV. Here it is integrated into the header rather than floated on top of it, which is the difference between a designed document and a decorated one. If the employer asks for a document without one, the photo toggle in the editor removes it and Creative Professional re-balances the header on its own.
Make it yours
Customising Creative Professional
Accent colour
Creative Professional ships with #0d9488 as its accent. The accent is doing visible design work, so choose it deliberately: pull it from your portfolio site or your personal identity rather than accepting a default. One strong colour beats two competing ones on a page this expressive.
Fonts and heading style
A display or editorial face for headings over a quiet body face is the pairing this layout is drawn around. Let one voice lead — setting both at high contrast is what turns an art-directed CV into a noisy one. Heading case — uppercase, capitalised or as typed — is a separate switch, and it changes the character of the page more than most people expect.
Spacing and density
Font size, line height, section spacing and page margins are all sliders. On a single column they behave predictably: reduce section spacing first, margins second, and only then the type size — a CV set below 9.5pt starts to look like an attempt to hide its length.
Sections and order
Projects, awards and links carry more weight than a long employment history. If the work itself is your strongest argument, move projects above experience — it takes one drag in the editor. Every section can be renamed, reordered or hidden, and Pro adds custom sections for anything the standard set does not cover.
Photo
The portrait can be circular, rounded or square, and it can be switched off entirely — the header reflows rather than leaving a hole, so one CV serves both a market that expects a photograph and one that does not.
Paper size and export
Switch between A4 and US Letter and the document re-flows to the new page instead of being scaled into it. The exported PDF is rendered from the same component as the preview, so nothing shifts between the screen and the file.
Creative Professional: common questions
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Keep exploring
- All creative templatesEvery design in the Creative family, side by side.
- One-column templatesThe full single-column range, across all six categories.
- CV templatesFormats, page counts and conventions by country and career stage.
- ATS CV templatesWhat a parser does with your file, and the layouts built to survive it.
- CV examplesWorked examples by role, with the wording and structure explained.
- Free CV templatesEvery template you can use and download without paying.
Start your CV with Creative Professional
Open it with the example content already in place, replace it with your own, and download a PDF when it reads the way you want. Switching to another template later keeps every word you have written.
Free plan, free download, no credit card.