Skip to main content
CreateCVOnline

Creative · Single column · ATS 2/5

Portfolio Style CV template

Your projects get the big type and a tinted card grid; everything else stays compact.

A creative CV is itself a work sample: the person reading it is judging craft before they open your portfolio, and this layout is built to be looked at as well as read. One column, with a place for a photograph that the layout closes up cleanly when you decide not to use one.

Live preview of the Portfolio Style template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.

The design

About the Portfolio Style layout

Portfolio Style inverts the usual hierarchy: the header shrinks to a single line and the Projects section takes the space, rendered as a grid of cards on a tinted panel at a larger type size than the rest of the document. Experience, education and certifications sit underneath in compact form, so a page that would normally list four jobs instead shows the work you actually want discussed. Headings are set in lowercase with a thick highlighter swipe under the text — deliberately expressive, which is why the ATS score is low; send it to a person, not a portal.

Who it’s for

The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.

  • Freelancers and contractors pitching on their work
  • Product and UX designers with a project-led story
  • Developers and makers who lead with side projects

Key features

What is actually different about this template on the page.

  • Projects promoted to a tinted card grid at larger scale
  • Single-line compact header with small portrait
  • Lowercase headings with a highlighter swipe
  • Wrapping skill chips
  • Compact experience and education entries

ATS score 2/5 · Limited

How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system

Two out of five, and that is a deliberate trade. The composition — framing, centring, generous negative space — is the whole point of the design, and it is exactly what a parser strips away.

Because there is only one text column, an extractor never has to decide which block to read first — the page has exactly one reading order and it is the one you can see.

The portrait is an image, so no parser reads it, and a handful of large employers’ systems flag documents that contain images at all. Switching the photo off in the editor takes one click and the layout closes up around it.

Use this one where a person opens the file: a direct approach, a studio, an agent, a client, a networking introduction. For anything uploaded to a careers portal, build a second version from the ATS CV templates — the same content, a layout that survives extraction, and no need to write anything twice.

Parsing checklistATS score 2 out of 5
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 Portfolio Style is the right answer to

Templates are chosen badly when they are chosen in the abstract. Here is what sending this one actually looks like.
Case 1

A gallery, residency or commission

The people reading this are not running keyword screens. They are looking for taste, coherence and a body of work — which is what this composition is built to present. The obvious case: Freelancers and contractors pitching on their work.

Case 2

Craft on the page

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.

Case 3

An agent, gallery or representation submission

Representation is a personal relationship, and the submission is read as one. A composed page with a portrait belongs in that conversation in a way a plain text CV does not. If the employer asks for a document without one, the photo toggle in the editor removes it and Portfolio Style re-balances the header on its own.

Make it yours

Customising Portfolio Style

The template sets the structure; everything inside it is yours. Colours, fonts, spacing, section order and paper size are all controls in the CV builder, and the preview updates as you change them — nothing is applied blind.

Accent colour

Portfolio Style ships with #7c3aed 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

Three sliders control density — type size, line height and the gap between sections — and on a one-column page each of them affects the whole document evenly, so fitting two pages into one is a matter of small adjustments rather than deletions.

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.

Portfolio Style: common questions

No, and it does not try to be: it scores 2 out of 5. The composition that makes it worth sending to a creative director is the same composition a parser strips. Keep it for direct approaches and build a single-column version for anything uploaded.

Alternatives

Related templates

Other layouts worth comparing before you commit — the closest matches from Creative first, then designs with a similar ATS score from other families.

Art Director

creative · one column

Pro

Content Creator

creative · two columns

Pro

Creative Designer

creative · two columns

Pro

Creative Professional

creative · one column

Free

Editorial

creative · two columns

Pro

Graphic Designer

creative · one column

Pro

Start your CV with Portfolio Style

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 to start. A Pro or Lifetime plan unlocks this design and every other one.