When designing a resume, it is easy to overdo it. Creative templates with sidebars, star ratings for skills, and multi-colored headers might look pretty to you, but they are often unreadable to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and overwhelming to human recruiters.
The best resumes combine visual hierarchy with professional formatting. This means selecting clean typography and using colors that stand out without being distracting.
Here is how to design a high-converting, professional resume.
1. Typography: The Best Fonts for Resumes
Your font choice affects readability and set the tone of your application. Avoid outdated fonts like Times New Roman, and decorative fonts that break ATS parsers.
Instead, choose clean, modern sans-serif or elegant serif typography:
- Inter: A modern font designed for computer screens, perfect for tech, marketing, and startup roles.
- Lato: A warm sans-serif font that looks clean and friendly, highly readable at small sizes.
- Georgia: An elegant serif font that looks professional and fits traditional industries like law, finance, and consulting.
2. The Psychology of Resume Accent Colors
Using a single accent color for section headings and dividers can make your resume more readable and memorable. Here is what different colors convey to recruiters:
- Navy Blue: Trust, stability, and professionalism. The safest and most popular choice for corporate roles.
- Forest Green: Growth, balance, and analytical skills. Excellent for finance, operations, and science roles.
- Deep Purple: Leadership, creativity, and premium quality. Perfect for executive, design, and product management roles.
- Ocean Teal: Creativity and communication. A modern choice for marketing and customer-facing roles.
"An accent color should be used sparingly. Use it for headers, name lines, and dividers, while keeping the body text dark grey or black for readability."
3. Designing Your Resume on CV Scanner
Our editor provides built-in design controls to ensure your layout is clean and professional:
- Typography Toggle: Switch between fonts like Inter and Lato to see what suits your style best.
- Curated Swatches: Select from Slate, Navy Blue, Forest Green, Burgundy, Deep Purple, Ocean Teal, Bronze Gold, and Terracotta swatches.
- Font Scale Slider: Adjust text size to fit your information on a single page without squishing the lines.
- PDF Compiler: Export your file as an ATS-compliant PDF with a clean design.
Style your resume professionally
Choose your typography, select an accent color, and generate a beautiful resume PDF.
Design My Resume with AI