Resume Design Guidelines is a compilation of instructions that I give to my students. Primarily aimed at design students who are preparing to start an Industry Internship or Graduation Project. However, a similar analogy can be drawn by others. I hope this will help and you will enjoy preparing your resume. I would look forward to hearing from you. Please email me your concerns, suggestions, comments or improvements. Feel free to share this resource if it helps.

1. Résumé
Design
Guidelines1.0
Let the purpose define your path
Jayant Kumar

2. Resume Design Guidelines is a compilation of instructions that I
give to my students. Primarily aimed at design students who are
preparing to start an Industry Internship or Graduation Project.
However, similar analogy can be drawn by others.
I hope this will help and you will enjoy preparing your resume.
I would look forward to hear from you. Please email me your
concerns, suggestions, comments or improvements.
Feel free to share this resource if it helps.
Resume Design Guidelines © Copyright 2018
Jayant Kumar
Assistant Professor,
Department of Textile Design
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna
jayant.kumar@nift.ac.in

3. 1
Resume Design Guidelines
“Let the purpose define your path.”
Q. Why are you making a resume?
A. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Q. How will it help you achieve your goal?
A. ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
While articulating the answers to the above two question you can have some clarity of thought
about your purpose for making a resume.
Now, let us understand, what are the various ways we can approach to make one ?
There are these three different terms Resume, CV and Biodata which are often used
interchangeably. However, their meanings are very different.
Resume is a French term which means summary. It is a summary of your professional profile
having brief mention about your specific experience, qualification and skills that are necessary
to secure the new position that you are looking for. It is essentially a one page, A4 size document
written in third person highlighting the most recent, important and very specific experience,
expertise, skills and education in reverse chronological order. It is used when applying for
internship, graduation project, job, change of job or whenever asked by prospective employer.
CV or Curriculum Vitae is a Latin word which means ‘course of life’. It is more detailed than
resume and contains all the job experience, skills and educational qualification acquired by the
candidate in a chronological order. It is more of a general and overall profile of the candidate
unlike a resume which is often tailor made having only specific details which are most relevant
to the position a candidate is applying for. It is used mostly for higher education or when you
want to change your field of work. Of course also when asked by any prospective organisation.
Bio Data or Biographical Data often emphasises the personal details of the person like
DOB, Gender, Religion, nationality, marital status and similar other information, followed
by chronological listing of experience and education details. Used mostly when asked for.
Government jobs mostly ask for biodata of the candidate. Usually there is a format that simply
needs to filled with the required information. It is also used for matrimonial purposes.

4. 2
Resume Design Guidelines
For our purpose, i.e. to secure an internship / graduation project / job in a reputed fashion or
textile based organisation / fashion and lifestyle accessory design based organisation / fashion
communication based organisation, we need to design a resume, which essentially means
summary of your professional profile that will list down your specific skills relevant to the
organisation you are applying for.
Before we get started we need to keep few things in mind.
1. Content of the resume is the most important thing. Keep it true to yourself. Make it
original. Do not copy paste from others.
2. Your resume is going to represent you in your absence, so it has to be good enough to
represent your candidature in an appropriate manner.
3. It should be pleasant to look at. Easy to read. And convenient to navigate for any
required information.
4. It must be error free in terms of spelling mistakes, sentence construct and grammar and
devoid of any ambiguous words. Try using simple words, smaller sentences and where ever
possible rephrase the content to be precise and succinct.
5. Do not reveal personal information like date of birth (DOB), religion, etc. Or any other
information against which you can be discriminated. No photographs unless asked for.
6. It must be designed beautifully and have an element of surprise to grab the attention of
the prospective employer.
7. Designers are expected to have an eye for details. You can communicates your confidence,
relevant qualification, skills and aptness for the given profile by being meticulous in
putting up particular details in your resume.
Let’s proceed to write resume.
Following this step by step approach you will be able to write your resume. I have tried to
explain what to include and what to avoid and my reasons for doing so.
1. Name: _________________________________________________________________
It is the most important and indispensable part of your resume. Use your full name, or
keep it as mentioned in your official documents like passport, certificates, etc.. By keeping
your name big enough you will help the reviewer know whose resume it is. It must be
kept top in visual hierarchy. Doing so will help in identifying your resume from ten other
resumes that might have been kept on the desk for consideration.
2. Contact details: __________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

5. 3
Resume Design Guidelines
You must include all your contact details where you would like your prospective employer
to contact you. This will include your complete postal address, your official email id, your
phone no./Mobile number (if available), website URL, (if available). Ensure the correctness
of the address. Include the correct PIN code.
Understand that if any correspondence comes to this address it must reach you else there
will be chances of you missing on some good opportunity. E.g. your address might be:
Dept. of Textile Design, NIFT Campus, Mithapur Farms, Patna- 800 001, Bihar, India.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Use only your official email id. i.e. your first name. your surname@nift.ac.in
It is unprofessional to use your personal email id. So, never use your personal email ids
like coolguy@hotmail.com or cutegirl@yahoo.co.in
________________________________________________________________________
Mention your correct phone/mobile no. Use country codes (+91) leave a space first five
digits of your mobile no. leave a blank space then the last five digits this will make it easier
to read. Or country codes (+91) leave a space first three digits of your mobile no. leave a
blank space then the next three digits leave a blank space and then the last four digits this
will make it easier to read. E.g. +91 99889 99889 OR +91 998 899 9889
________________________________________________________________________
Do not give your father’s / mother’s/ brother’s / sister’s / friend’s number. Imagine your
father or mother receiving a call from the organisation asking, will you be able to work
on block print/Jala loom / zardozi / rugs/ wood/ metal/ leather/ photography/ styling or
please send your portfolio ASAP.
Do share your web URL if you have an online portfolio, may be your own website or may
be at behance, coroflot, or similar other portfolio sites etc... e.g. www.yourwebsite.com or
www.behance.net/yourname
________________________________________________________________________
3. Objective: Mention your objective clearly.
Your objective statement should have answers for:
Who are you? And under what capacity have you shared your resume?
(So, you being a Design student from NIFT are writing to the organisation....)
Why have you shared the resume? (For job, GP, internship or something else)
When do you intend to start? (Mention the month, year clearly)

6. 4
Resume Design Guidelines
What is the duration, if any? (In case of internship 8 weeks and GP 16 weeks.
(Do check with your department for the same and put the correct duration )
So, your objective statement may read something like:
A Textile Design student from NIFT seeking 8 weeks of Industry Internship with a Fashion
or Textile based organisation during May-July-2018.
OR
A Textile Design student from NIFT seeking 16 weeks of Graduation Project with a Fashion
or Textile based organisation starting from January 2019.
OR
An Accessory Design student from NIFT seeking 8 weeks of internship with a Fashion &
Lifestyle Accessory based organisation during May-July-2018.
OR
An Accessory Design student from NIFT seeking 22 weeks of Graduation Project with a
Fashion & Lifestyle accessory based organisation during Nov’18-Apr’19.
Similar analogy can be drawn by students of other specialisation to write down the
Objective statement relevant to their purpose.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Do not copy paste objective statements from others resume which often talks about
fulfilling organisational goal, and utilisation of potential etc... Please understand you are
seeking this internship / GP as it is your academic requirement. So, be focused to fulfil
your academic requirements and keep it like that.
4. Education: This must be mentioned in reverse chronological order. Try to maintain some
visual hierarchy, so one can locate the required information easily.
For example.
B.Des.-Textile Design National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna 2015-19
12th
Your School Name, Place 2014
10th
Your school Name , Place 2012
OR
B.Des.-Textile Design 2014-18 National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna
12th
2014 Your 12th
School Name, Place
10th
2012 Your 10th
school Name, Place
OR
B.Des.-Textile Design 2014-18
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Patna
12th
2014
Your 12th
School Name, Place
10th
2012
Your 10th
school Name, Place

7. 5
Resume Design Guidelines
Similar analogy can be drawn by students of other specialisation to write down the their
education details. (Use the correct Degree name. i.e. B.Des. (Accessory Design/Fashion
Communication / Fashion Design / Textile Design). Refer to NIFT website/ brochure in
case of confusion. Do not change the nomenclature of your Degree name. And use batch
instead of semester. As semester keeps changing every six months whereas your batch
remains the same throughout your career.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5. Craft Research and Documentation, Industry Internship, Craft Design Project, Graduation
Project are all curricular activities. So you can put them as Academic Related Work
or under their own heading. Do not put it under Experience. And same stands true for
classroom projects. Student often use cluster word inappropriately, so be careful and do
not use it out of context.
6. Skills: Do mention all the skills you posses that makes you relevant and highly desirable
candidate for the fashion /textile/ accessory design / fashion communication based
organisation. Many a times your resume may be evaluated by a PA or an HR person,
who may not know about your institute and course. And sometimes your resume will
be machine read. So, it is highly advisable to include all relevant skills specific to your
field. Use the industry specific vocabulary to have a better connect with your prospective
employer. E.g. textile design students might be skilled at weaving, dyeing and printing,
surface development. And Accessory Design students may be skilled in material
handling, product development and prototyping, Product visualisation, Technical
Drawing and Rendering etc. A Fashion Communication student may be skilled at Visual
Communication, Graphic Design, Photography, Styling, Fashion Journalism, Creative
writing etc...
Similar analogy can be drawn to write down the skills relevant to the other areas of
specialisations.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Achievements: Do mention all your achievement which is relevant to the specific
organisation you are approaching. E.g. having won awards at painting competitions,
fashion or design events will be more relevant than wining at swimming, lawn tennis, TT
championships. Your volunteering activities for social service will be relevant if you want
to work in a craft based organisation which will indicate that you have worked previously
at a grass root level and can connect with that sector. Mention only a selected and the
best of your achievements which you feel is relevant for the specific organisation you are
approaching to. (Use action verbs like- designed, organised, achieved, improved etc...)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

8. 6
Resume Design Guidelines
________________________________________________________________________
8. Quote or Thought: You may include a punch line, quote or some thought that you
strongly believe in. If you have space
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. Run the spell-check to make your resume error free for spellings.
10. Check , Check and Check for any grammatical and sentence construct related errors. Fix
them. If needed rephrase the sentences.
11. Re-Check, Re-Check and Re- Check it all again to ensure that your resume is error free.
By filling up the following form you can consolidate all your information required to be put
up in your resume. Feel free to use a notebook/ more pages as per your requirement.
Name: _____________________________________________________________________
Address:____________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
E-mail Id: __________________________________________________________________
Mobile No.: _________________________________________________________________
Website: ____________________________________________________________________
Other Contacts if any :_________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Objective: __________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Education: __________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

9. 7
Resume Design Guidelines
___________________________________________________________________________
Academic Projects: ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Skills:_______________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Achievements:_______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Others relevant information :___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Quote / thought: _____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
Only when you have completed writing your resume,
start with its layout design.

10. 8
Layout Design Guidelines
Layout Design Guidelines
Good readability and ease of locating an information is the key
1. Resume is a one page document. So keep it to one page only. Keep it A4 size only.
2. Leave at least 1” margin on all sides. Leaving one inch margin on all sides, frames your
content well. You have the needful white space/ negative space. And it also gives the
reviewer ample space to write his/her observations, comments and feedbacks.
3. Name should be the most emphasised element in your resume. The same can be achieved
through size,weight, colour, orientation and placements etc...
4. Maintain a visual hierarchy in presenting an information. E.g.
Industry Internship
Name of the company, Place MMYY - MMYY
Worked with R&D team, designed and developed a collection of 21 product prototypes for
US based home furnishing market. ( A brief description of your work.)
OR
Industry Internship
Name of the company, Place MMYY - MMYY
Worked with R&D team, designed and developed a collection of 21 product prototypes for
US based home furnishing market. ( A brief description of your work.)
OR
Industry Internship
Name of the company, Place MMYY - MMYY
Worked with R&D team, designed and developed a collection of 21 product prototypes for US based home
furnishing market. ( A brief description of your work.)
* You may refer to a LinkedIn profile to see how visual hierarchy is maintained in presenting an information.
5. Any information on your resume should be easy to locate and navigate.
6. Use simple typeface to write your resume. It should be easily readable. Anything which
hinders with the legibility of the text should be avoided at all times. Use minimum number
of fonts. One or two fonts are good. Try to avoid using more than two fonts. Pro font
family comes in many weights, which can be used to create the required visual hierarchy.
7. Avoid ALL CAPS. Use Title Case, Bold, bigger type size, etc.. instead of ALL CAPS.

11. 9
Layout Design Guidelines
8. Sometimes two column of text can fit in more contents in the given space.
For example-
Design Skills
Design Skills 1
Design Skills 2
Design Skills 3
Design Skills 4
Design Skills 5
Technical Skills
Technical Skills 1
Technical Skills 2
Technical Skills 3
Technical Skills 4
Technical Skills 5
Can be written and presented as:
Design Skills
Design Skills 1
Design Skills 2
Design Skills 3
Design Skills 4
Design Skills 5
Technical Skills
Technical Skills 1
Technical Skills 2
Technical Skills 3
Technical Skills 4
Technical Skills 5
9. Avoid background colours. If your resume has a background colour/ image, the whole
page is going to soak ink when printed. Imagine person taking the print out might have
his hands soiled with ink. Which is never a good idea.
10. Ensure it looks good in black and white. After all the organisation may not invest in
taking a colour printout of your resume.
11. Do not use decoration that competes for viewers attention. Remove any elements ( line,
shape, colour, texture, etc..) that you can, until the ones that you can not do without.
There are many possibilities to typeset and layout your resume while keeping these guidelines
into consideration. Use your creativity to design and layout your resume in your own way.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects,
and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.
- By Dieter Rams

12. 10
File name, type and size Guidelines
File Name, File Type and File Size Guidelines
1. The file name of your resume should be preferably:
FirstName Surname_Resume.pdf or Resume_FirstName Surname.pdf
It will be much easier for any one to locate your resume in a system. An organisation
receives many resume on a daily basis. Imagine a folder with hundreds of file named
“Resume.pdf”, nobody will know which one is yours unless you have named it properly.
You may also think of saving the file name as versions or date wise. For example:
Name Surname_Resume Ver07.pdf OR FirstName Surname_Resume_Jan18.pdf
This will also help you identify, when was your resume last updated. As you may need to
update it again before sending it.
2. Save your file in PDF format only. PDF is the industry standard open format file. PDF
readers are available free of cost to all, unlike MS or other Adobe applications. So, it
is highly advisable to share the resume, portfolio or other works in PDF format only.
Also, this insures that your resume looks exactly the same on every system, as you have
originally designed it. A PDF file can be viewed in the web browser itself and also in
different platforms like desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile device, etc. and on any of the
operating system like Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.
3. Try to keep the file size of your resume small. Smaller the file size better it is. It should
not exceed 500KB. And for portfolio (that is intended to be send over email as an
attachment) try to keep the file size under 5 MB.
Many organisation have an email attachment file size limit. You would never know of this
unless mentioned. It can be of 10MB, 5MB, 2MB or even 1MB. Any attachment exceeding
these file size limit will not get delivered. So, try to keep the file size as small as possible.
It is a good idea to have your own website or portfolio site.
For example- You can make your portfolio on sites like: Behance,
Coroflot, Wordpress, Blogger, Google sites, Carbonmade,
Wix, Adobe Portfolio, Vimeo, Youtube, etc.
So you can simply share your website / porfolio site link
to the prospective organisation rather than
attaching PDF portfolio having a big file size .

13. 11
E-mailing Guidelines
E-mailing Guidelines
1. Use official email id only. i.e.- first name.surname@nift.ac.in
2. When you compose a new email, give a relevant subject name.
E.g. the subject may be something like:
Textile Design Student from NIFT seeking 8 weeks of Internship OR
Accessory Design Student from NIFT seeking 22 weeks of Graduation Project
Similar analogy can be drawn by students of other specialisation to write relevant subject.
A meaningful subject helps the receiver in understanding the importance of your message.
So, always think of a meaningful subject line that you think is going to grab the receiver’s
attention, and write the same as subject line. Never keep it blank.
3. Write a cover letter supporting your candidature for the given Internship/ Graduation
Project / Job. Never leave the body of the message blank.
Many a times student don’t write anything in the body of the email. It is very
unprofessional to keep the body of the email blank. It is not a good practise. It simply
communicates that the candidate is not interested; s/he is too casual in approach. The
opportunity is not important for the candidate.
Whereas we want to create such an impression on the receiver that after going through the
email s/he should look at the resume and call us back to confirm the internship/ GP/ job
or discuss further.
4. Cover letter is your opportunity to communicate to the prospective employer that you are
very much interested to work with them and that you have the relevant skills that can be
utilised to accomplish the task.
5. In order to communicate this you can follow below strategy:
In the first paragraph, introduce yourself and tell them your reason for writing to them.
In the 2nd
paragraph explain why you chose the given organisation for your internship/
Graduation Project/ Job over others. How your professional skills are a suitable match
for the organisation. (You need to communicate that you have done some research on
the given organisation and you know and understand what it takes to perform well in the
organisation. You should do it like a fan or an enthusiast.)
You can conclude by sharing your contact details.

14. 12
Emailing Guidelines
Do communicate that you will be available to provide any further information if needed.
And that you look forward to their affirmative response.
6. This is regarding some references for preparing the cover letter. Please go through these
links:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/01/21/how-to-write-a-cover-letter-when-
you-have-no-experience/2/#4ae1e7a77791188e9b077914
http://www.fastweb.com/career-planning/articles/cover-letter-for-internship-sample
http://www.internships.com/student/resources/search/coverletter/howto
http://www.internships.com/student/resources/search/coverletter/emailtips
This will help you in understanding what you should be writing and why to do so.
Do follow the email tips.
7. Do check the spelling and grammatical errors. Correct them before sending.
8. Do check all the attachments. And be doubly sure that you have attached the correct files.
A typical check list may include the following:
1) Internship / Graduation Project letter received from your department CC. ☐
2) Your Resume. ☐
3) Your Portfolio ☐
4) other relevant attachments if needed. ☐
9. Try to connect with them on working days during working hours.
10. Beinregularcontactwithyourfacultymentorandkeephim/herinloopforallyourprogress.
11. Never say no to an offer. Do discuss with your faculty/ CC whenever in doubt. Or if you
plan to decline any opportunity, discuss the matter with faculty mentor/ CC/ RIC before
replying to the industry.
12. Please understand the kind of rapport you create with the industry not only affects you
but also the institute that you represent. And I hope none of you would want to jeopardise
your institutes’s reputation. So, do take guidance from your faculty mentor/ CC or RIC
while connecting with the industry.
Hope the above guidelines will be helpful.
Wish you a wonderful learning experience.
Kind regards.
Jayant Kumar

15. Would love to hear from you
Please email any comments, feedback, suggestions or
improvements at: jayant.kumar@nift.ac.in

16. 14
Design is one - it is not many different ones.
The discipline of Design is one and can be
applied to many different subjects, regardless
of style. Design discipline is above and beyond
any style. All style requires discipline in order
to be expressed. Very often people think that
Design is a particular style. Nothing could be
more wrong! Design is a discipline, a creative
process with its own rules, controlling the
consistency of its output toward its objective in
the most direct and expressive way.
-By Massimo Vignelli