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Creative director & designer skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
5 min read
Quoted experts
Elizabeth Sutton,
Elizabeth Sutton
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical creative director & designer skills. We ranked the top skills for creative directors & designer based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 10.7% of creative director & designer resumes contained graphic design as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a creative director & designer needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 creative director & designer skills for your resume and career

1. Graphic Design

Graphic design is the art of making visual content to communicate messages. Designers apply different page layout methods and visual hierarchy by using letters and pictures to meet the need of end-users. Most companies use graphic design to sell their product or services and to convey complicated information by using infographics.

Here's how creative directors & designer use graphic design:
  • Developed, implemented and validated graphic designs and advertising campaign to meet clients quality standards.
  • Refer to Graphic Design Qualifications Summary at http://www.kreativemark.com

2. Sketch

Here's how creative directors & designer use sketch:
  • Sketch and create concepts for baseball-themed apparel Finalize and produce completed designs for apparel/print/web Web design/development/coding Generate brand direction and awareness
  • Developed strategic project plans managing and maintaining multiple projects from sketch to print, facilitating high-impact presentations to senior leadership.

3. Photography

Here's how creative directors & designer use photography:
  • Created authored and directed high quality external design collateral, illustration, photography, editorial/technical writing, advertising and promotional/educational materials.
  • Directed photographers in helicopters around the country in advertising and corporate photography.

4. Creative Direction

Here's how creative directors & designer use creative direction:
  • Provided creative direction to a team of designers and advised leadership on the feasibility of new offerings.
  • Contracted creative direction, design, project management and business development for key accounts.

5. Creative Concepts

A creative concept is a big idea that helps in capturing the audience's interest, attracting customers, influencing decisions, and help them to take action. A creative concept can be applied to all communication channels like messages, call to action, emails, etc. Generally, a headline or a tagline is the place where creative concepts play a vital role in successfully attracting the target audience.

Here's how creative directors & designer use creative concepts:
  • Developed creative concepts to follow marketing, creative, and budget objectives.
  • Developed creative concepts through production for two different stadiums.

6. Art Direction

Art direction is an essential job in the activities related to theatre, advertising, fashion, publishing as well the film industry. All of these fields have a direct or indirect connection with art and therefore require direction and supervision regarding this very aspect of the job. The art director is responsible for how a product turns out visually..

Here's how creative directors & designer use art direction:
  • Generated visual prototypes for art direction.
  • Founder of the creative digital media agency specializing in branding, print design, art direction and audio/video production.

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7. Creative Design

Here's how creative directors & designer use creative design:
  • Oversee that all creative design efforts are on goal, strategy, brand, schedule and budget.
  • Conducted market research to create & present creative design briefs to Design Director & Creative Director.

8. Video Production

Here's how creative directors & designer use video production:
  • Attend meetings with top government officials in US Courts to collaborate and conceptualize graphic elements online video productions and web seminars.
  • Specialize in the creative: conceptualization and execution of package design in broadcast and video production.

9. Adobe Creative Suite

Here's how creative directors & designer use adobe creative suite:
  • Designed Mockups and sketched storyboards for several workflow scenarios and used adobe creative suite for comps design, wire-framing and prototyping.
  • Delivered visual solutions to support global marketing campaign execution leveraging Adobe Creative Suite.

10. Adobe Illustrator

Here's how creative directors & designer use adobe illustrator:
  • Co-designed at exclusive luxury brand, Katharine Kidd on Spring/Fall 2013 and 2014 collections using Adobe Illustrator from start to finish.
  • Started as a Graphic Artist, utilizing Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

11. Website Design

Here's how creative directors & designer use website design:
  • Create all branding, website design and graphics, and nearly all other design-related elements for the business.
  • Oversee website design and development for online retail stores.

12. Motion Graphics

Here's how creative directors & designer use motion graphics:
  • Leveraged multiple tools to create compelling still images, motion graphics, and software interfaces.
  • Created motion graphics and compositing footage in pipeline.

13. Product Design

Product design can be described as a process of imagining, creating, and iterating products that solve user's problems and talk about the specific needs of users in the market. Product design is an engineering disciple and it is the basic design and idea that goes before the mass production of the product.

Here's how creative directors & designer use product design:
  • Translated designs and historical and antique pieces to new product designs and uses for The Hearst Castle Collection(TM).
  • Executed new product design and branding, creative marketing initiatives for new packaging, and ensured quality standards were met.

14. Brand Development

Here's how creative directors & designer use brand development:
  • Help develop and sell Brand Development for business-to-business, service companies, non-profits, financial institutions and others.
  • Meet with all clients and help to sell layouts/concepts or Brand Development strategies.

15. Design Solutions

The design solution is a process that is used to simplify or translate high-level client requirements into a simpler form that may be also be regarded as a solution. For this purpose, the technical requirements and models are to be transformed into alternative designs which are then analyzed and the best one among all the alternatives is chosen as the ultimate solution.

Here's how creative directors & designer use design solutions:
  • Collaborated on marketing conceptual development, as well as independent design solutions.
  • Develop and execute design solutions for print, digital and video pieces from concept to completion across different visual languages.
top-skills

What skills help Creative Directors & Designer find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on creative director & designer resumes?

Elizabeth Sutton

Department Head, Professor of Art History, University of Northern Iowa

What really stands out is the quality of the student's portfolios and that they have client-based real-world experience.

What hard/technical skills are most important for creative director & designers?

Elizabeth Sutton

Department Head, Professor of Art History, University of Northern Iowa

We train our students in Adobe Creative Suite: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator.

What soft skills should all creative director & designers possess?

Elizabeth Sutton

Department Head, Professor of Art History, University of Northern Iowa

There are many--the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively is absolutely necessary. The ability to ask for feedback and be able to take that feedback and incorporate it into a process is very important. Of course, meeting deadlines is also very important.

What creative director & designer skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Scott FosterScott Foster LinkedIn profile

Associate Professor of Studio Art, Chair of Creative Arts Department, Siena College

Working on a team. The exact project might not matter much, although it's better if it dovetails with your interests or career goals. This could be as simple as volunteering at a non-profit to revamp a website or build an app to measure outcomes.

What type of skills will young creative director & designers need?

Brian PirmanBrian Pirman LinkedIn profile

Associate Professor, St. Norbert College

For someone who is contemplating a career in graphic design, I recommend several things. One would be to develop a portfolio that shows a diverse skill-set. This may include expertise in design and layout, photography, illustration, typography as well as animation and video. If you have a more varied skill set, you are more likely to either gain employment or able to do freelance work. The other thing is internships, internships, internships. Having a portfolio of applied work (versus school projects), as long as it's good, will separate you from the competition.
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about creative director & designer

List of creative director & designer skills to add to your resume

Creative director & designer skills

The most important skills for a creative director & designer resume and required skills for a creative director & designer to have include:

  • Graphic Design
  • Sketch
  • Photography
  • Creative Direction
  • Creative Concepts
  • Art Direction
  • Creative Design
  • Video Production
  • Adobe Creative Suite
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Website Design
  • Motion Graphics
  • Product Design
  • Brand Development
  • Design Solutions
  • User Experience
  • Design Development
  • Instagram
  • Corporate Identity
  • Print Design
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Design Direction
  • Style Guides
  • Concept Development
  • Product Development
  • Brand Design
  • Business Development
  • Visual Identity
  • Creative Solutions
  • Print Collateral
  • Trade Shows
  • User Interface
  • HTML
  • Photo Shoots
  • Creative Strategy
  • Design Projects
  • Design Process
  • Creative Process
  • CSS
  • Copywriting
  • CAD
  • Fine Arts
  • Brand Marketing
  • SEO
  • Logo Design
  • Design Concepts
  • Package Design
  • Print Production
  • NYC

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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