Creative · Two columns · ATS 2/5
Visual Resume template
Level bars, a photo column and a gradient rail that runs the height of every page.
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. A two-column page with a portrait: more information density and more visual anchoring than a single column, at the usual cost in machine readability.
Live preview of the Visual Resume template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.
The design
About the Visual Resume layout
Who it’s for
The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.
- Designers and multimedia specialists
- Multilingual candidates with several working languages
- Anyone sending a CV directly to a hiring manager
Key features
What is actually different about this template on the page.
- Full-bleed gradient rail on every page
- Portrait column with skill and language bars
- Timeline experience with dated nodes
- Certifications and interests in the sidebar
ATS score 2/5 · Limited
How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system
Two out of five: a split page with heavy visual structure is close to the worst case for automated parsing. Everything is still real text, but the shape it comes back in is anyone’s guess.
Skills, languages and certifications sit in the side column, so those are the entries most likely to move in the extracted text; experience and education stay in the wide column and stay in sequence.
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.
A single column parses more reliably than two, in every system we have tested against. If the application goes through a portal you do not recognise, or the employer is large enough to screen automatically, send a one-column version instead — the ATS CV templates are built for that job, and your content moves across without being retyped.
- Reading order
- Two blocks
- 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 Visual Resume is the right answer to
A creative studio approach
Hand-delivered, emailed or dropped into a portfolio review, where the document itself is part of the argument. It is not built for an upload field and should not be sent to one. A typical example: Designers and multimedia specialists.
Work that speaks first
Tools, software and links live in the side column while the wide column keeps the projects and the story behind them, which is the order a design reviewer reads in anyway.
A portfolio-led creative approach
For photographers, art directors and stylists the portrait is a statement about how you frame an image, including one of yourself. Reviewers in these fields read that, and no screening system ever will. If the employer asks for a document without one, the photo toggle in the editor removes it and Visual Resume re-balances the header on its own.
Make it yours
Customising Visual Resume
Accent colour
Visual Resume ships with #2563eb 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
The column split is fixed, but everything inside it is not: type size, line height, section spacing and page margins all adjust, and on a divided page the margins are the setting that buys you the most room without crowding the rule between the columns.
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.
Visual Resume: common questions
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- Rebuilt the self-serve onboarding flow, lifting activation from 34% to 58% within two quarters.
- Created and shipped the Atlas Design System (180 components, 3 platforms), reducing time-to-first-prototype by 40%.
- Introduced a fortnightly research cadence; 46 studies run in 18 months now inform the roadmap.
- Mentored four designers, two of whom were promoted to senior level.
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- Shipped a reconciliation dashboard that cut average support tickets per merchant by 31%.
- Ran the first accessibility audit in company history and closed 92% of WCAG AA issues.
- Established the component library that the engineering team still builds on today.
Agency work across fifteen client engagements in retail, travel and public sector, from brand-led marketing sites to internal tooling.
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Keep exploring
- All creative templatesEvery design in the Creative family, side by side.
- Two-column templatesEvery split-page layout, for CVs with a lot to fit in.
- 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.
- Pricing and plansWhat Pro unlocks, and how the one-off Lifetime plan compares.
Start your CV with Visual Resume
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.