Julie Elman is an assistant professor at the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University (Athens), where she teaches design and picture editing. She received an MFA in photography from OU in 1987 and has 15 years of newspaper experience as a photojournalist, picture editor and page designer (most recently at The Virginian-Pilot as an A1 designer). Elman designed the New York Times best-selling photography book “The Rise of Barack Obama” by Pete Souza, who is now chief White House photographer.

{This is Part 3 of a weekly series on creating an effective resume for the visual journalist.  For part 1, please go here.  For part 2, go here.}

CONTRAST. I’m convinced that this is the secret to creating a readable, accessible, attractive resume, whether on or offline. I’m sure I’m not the first person to come to this groundbreaking conclusion. But I do know that try as I might to get the word out to students, creating contrast doesn’t happen often enough, probably because students aren’t yet aware of all the choices they have in their visual toolboxes. Read on.



• Evaluate: Is it C.R.A.P. or crap?
The acronym C.R.A.P. — contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity — comes straight from the pages of author Robin Williams’ “The Non-Designer’s Design & Type Books” (Peachpit Press). Without using these basic design principles on your resume, your resume has the potential to look like … well, crap.

Contrast helps break up the mass of text. Using a unique typographical touch for your name, contact info, general labels (i.e., education, work experience), job titles, dates, etc., will help distinguish differing types of information from one another, which in turn makes it easier to navigate through the information. There are many ways to achieve contrast: color, all caps, italics, varying the weight of the typefaces. (Since it’s much easier to show rather than tell, be sure to check out the visual examples that are included with this blog posting.)

Repetition is akin to parallelism, as mentioned in last week’s resume blog. Find the parts of the resume that serve the same purpose and make them look similar.

Alignment on a resume is often intuitive, but definitely not arbitrary. Flush left (where the straight edge would be) and ragged right of the body copy allows for the most flexibility with resume text, since many listings are short and sweet (if your resume is wordier, justified alignment might work well, too). Indenting some content, such as bulleted items under an “awards” heading, can help organize info and set it apart from other content.

Proximity simply means that the items that belong together should be grouped together visually — just like these paragraphs are clumped together (by the use of space on top and below each paragraph) on this blog.

• Look at the resume as it will be viewed by others.
If you plan to send hard copies, always proof from a hard copy. Type ALWAYS looks bigger on the screen than it does in print. If your resume will be seen on the Web only, then use whatever parameters make sense for the most people to view it easily on their monitors.

• Make white space your BFF.
Don’t make the reader of your resume swivel their head from side to side, as he or she attempts to follow the content on your wide-columned resume from one edge of the page to the other. Use a decent amount of white space in the margins to mitigate what has the potential to be a chore to read.

White space, and readability, can be introduced throughout the text, as well, by paying close attention to what’s called leading (rhymes with “bedding”). Leading, or line spacing, is the space between each line of text. If your body copy is 9 points, for example, you could increase the leading from what’s considered “normal” (almost 11 points for 9-point text) to something a bit looser, perhaps 12 points or 12.5 points (if, that is, you have the option to fine-tune this setting on whatever program you’re using to design your resume). Since the column of text on a resume is often wider than usual, the extra leading will help the text “breathe.”

• Understand that simple does not mean simplistic.
I will probably go to my grave stating the “keep it simple” mantra. A simple resume is uncluttered and not fussy. It’s clear and easy to follow. A resume that is anything but simple usually contains too many “tricks” — drop shadows, gradient screens, thick dashed lines, overly decorative typefaces. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. If the design comes forward more than the content, you’ve got a problem. Dial back. Sometimes it’s the smallest touches on a resume that resonate the most.

Your assignment for this week: With resume in hand, check to see if all the C.R.A.P. principles are applied on the page, from top to bottom, side to side.

{TIP} Viewing the resume upside down may help more easily detect anything that’s visually “off.”

What we’ll cover next week: The final polish, AP style, odd entries that don’t seem to have a natural fit on the resume, using spellchek. (Catch that?)

Julie Elman can be reached at elman(at)ohio.edu