Artist Resume Example & Writing Guide

An artist resume is the companion piece to an eye-catching portfolio. Why does an artist need a resume? Because you are more than a compilation of your best work. A thrown-together resume that’s barely an afterthought shows that you’re unwilling to go the extra mile.

A great artist resume, however, shows an art director you can work within job constraints with clarity of vision, versatility and flexibility.

You may be toiling away in obscurity, waiting for someone to hail your talents. Along with your artistic ability, you need the talent to sell yourself to a prospective employer or patron. That’s where your resume comes in. It represents you like an agent in the eyes of the art director, so you need to grab their attention fast.

Resume guide for an artist resume

Success comes to those who take advantage of the tools at hand. Resume.io’s guides and resume examples cover over 500 professions, and our resume builder takes you through the process of building a compelling document with ease.

This resume guide and corresponding artist resume example will cover the following:

• How to write an artist resume
• Choosing the right resume format for an artist
• How to add your contact information
• Artfully using summaries
• Adding your artistic experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• What the art market looks like and what salary you can expect

How to write an artist resume

You wouldn’t get started on a commission without knowing the specs. The first information you need for your artist resume is what sections to include. Your resume should contain the following elements:

• The resume header
• The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The resume skills section
• The education section

When you seek a new job, you’re, of course marketing your artistic talents. But you’re also selling the soft skills that make you a desirable person to work with. Your portfolio provides art directors with your style, the types of projects you have completed and the media in which you work. Your resume provides your unique value add: the details of why those projects were successes and how you contributed beyond being the comics colorist or graphic renderer.

To create a dynamic sales pitch within your resume, stick to these guidelines:

• Showcase accomplishments, not tasks. Did you make a suggestion about the look of a website that drove user engagement? Did a gallery exhibit of your work sell out? Were you the brains behind the color scheme of a successful marketing campaign? Detail these in your resume.
• Each art project requires unique talents and vision; therefore, each resume needs to point out how your unique talents and vision fit the bill.
• You're an artist. Show that off in your resume, but remember that design follows function. Clarity and functionality take precedence over artiness.
• If you want the art director to see your portfolio when you apply online, make sure you get past the ATS filter by using appropriate keywords and phrases.

Choosing the right resume format for an artist

Artist’s careers are often not as linear as more traditional fields. You may have had a succession of full-time work, a series of contract positions or commissions, or a mix. The type of career you have put together will determine the format of your artist resume.

The best format for those who have mostly had full-time work is reverse chronological reverse chronological order. In this format, your goal is to tell the story of your career working backwards from your most recent position. Go back no further than 10-15 years and show an increase in expertise, breadth of skills or leadership and mentoring.

This may not suit an artist who works with a gallery, takes on contract work or applies for commissions. In these cases, a more flexible design, such as a functional format, will allow for a more nonlinear style to ensure your best work gets the attention it deserves. 

Our resume builder provides many options for each format. You can see what completed designs look like in our resume examples.

Include your contact information

Every person in a career that requires networking has a handful of business cards at the ready. As an artist, you’re no different. The header of your artist resume is your application business card. It showcases your artistic talent in an easy-to-read and professional format.

Here’s what to include:

• Full name & title. List your first and last name. Use the title of the role you are pursuing. Try not to fall back on “artist.” Mimic the exact title from the job description.
• Professional email address. Use a clean format like [email protected]. Don’t use a quirky, unprofessional email address.
• Phone number. List a number where you can be readily contacted, with a professional voicemail greeting.
• Location. List only your city and state. Don’t list street address or zip code. It’s both outdated and unsafe. Note 'Willing to Relocate' here if applicable.
• Portfolio. You can link directly to your artistic work when using your resume builder.

Don’t include:

• Date of birth. Not necessary and could potentially lead to age discrimination.
• Personal details. Marital status, social security number, passport number, etc.

Make use of a summary

Even if a prospective client has seen your art, you need to sell them on your process. Although the temperamental artist cliche exists for a reason, that’s not the image you want to project. Use the  summary to sell how easy you’ll be to work with.

Do you make deadlines? Are you open to suggestions or is your art sacred? Can you capture any personality in one photo? Highlight these aspects of your work personality along with your proudest achievement in these 2-3 sentences.

Action verbs make for more dynamic reading so use the thesaurus if you need inspiration or start with words such as paint, render, visualize, design or conceptualize. Back them up with a description of your artistic results. 

Recognize that your portfolio speaks louder than verbal descriptions of your work and you don’t need to repeat the details from your employment history. Instead, focus on your artistic philosophy, influences or why this project is a great fit for your vision.

 As an artist, the way you view the world and process the input of others may be just as important to an employer as examples of your work. Portray yourself honestly, but with an eye toward what the project requires and what the hiring manager wants.

You can find adaptable artist resume summary examples below:

Outline your artist work experience: a portrait of success

Whether you begin with your latest job or most impressive art, keep focus on achievements directly related to the position you want. It’s great that you designed a concert poster, but how does that make you the right person to create an installation in the park?

You can either work chronologically, by listing each employer, your title, location and dates of your tenure or for a project-based approach, choose the recent projects that best illustrate why you’re the right artist for this next job. Start each bullet item off with an action you took, followed by the results you achieved. Refer your reader to the exact work within your portfolio as you mention it.

We understand you're a visual person, and may not be a wordsmith, but creativity counts here. The bland descriptions below don’t express what you did that another artist could not.

• Colorized comic book.
• Rendered 3D model of custom-designed home.
• Exhibited paintings at New York art gallery.

These generic items sound as though they were taken from the job ad. Each step of the way, you are sculpting the image of your dynamic achievements in a manner that compels the art director to call you in for an interview.

Instead, open a window into your process and how it improved the overall package. Here are rewritten versions of the items above:

• Designed color palette of neo-noir supervillain comic book that became bestseller.
• Interpreted architect’s blueprint into fully realized 3D model of Craftsman style bungalow home.
• Sold $230,000 during first night of solo exhibit of paintings and sculptures at New York gallery.

Take a look at the artist employment history resume sample below:

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great artist

Skills for an artist resume can be split into expertise you have in different media and your technical know-how, or hard skills, and interpersonal attributes, or soft skills. Your skills sections should consist of the blend of the two that best illustrates you as a whole.

Depending on the media in which you work, your hard skills may simply be those required to accurately recreate items in a drawing: expertise in perspective, proportion, balance, orientation, symmetry. You may also be proficient in photo enhancement and manipulation or have graphic design application expertise. 

Soft skills such as customer service (after all the client is your customer), communication skills, adaptability and time management all play a role in the success of a project. Also consider critical thinking, problem solving, attention to detail and ability to accept constructive criticism.

Choose from among the skills mentioned in the job ad. List only those in which you can honestly say you are proficient or expert, unless it is a skill mentioned as “nice to have” and you can show that you are willing to continue learning.

The resume builder offers suggestions you can choose from and includes the ability to set your proficiency range in each. If your skills are not listed, you can type them in.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our artist resume template. 

Let’s review for a second: The point of a resume for an artist is to sell the skills that you can’t show solely through your portfolio. The best way to do that is to include them throughout the document, and not just in your skills section. For example:

• Time management can be demonstrated through a detail about how you made a tight deadline.
• Adaptability comes into play in a description of a project whose goals or specs changed.
• Communication and customer service are key components to understanding what a client wants and their satisfaction with your creation.

Mine the job description for a clear understanding of which skills the employer finds most important and focus on those.

Detail your education & relevant artist certifications

You may be self-taught, have a graphic design degree, or even a Masters in Fine Art. Whatever level of education you have completed, list all your degrees, with major and minor, in the education section of your artist resume, in reverse chronological order. 

An artist’s education may come in many forms. All of these are valid entries in this section, especially if they demonstrate expertise in an area related to the job for which you are applying. Consider:

• Courses or certifications. Technology, technique or art history class, workshop or webinar related to your art career.
• Internships. If you worked in a marketing department, alongside an artist or anywhere else where you developed art skills, list that here.
• Professional development. Creative art groups, photography clubs, any organization that tells employers you’re skill improving your craft and listening to the ideas of others.

Pick the right resume layout and design for an artist resume

You understand visual first impressions well. That’s your bread and butter. You know how to engage viewers and create a visual flow through your work. You’re also used to the fact that if your art doesn’t capture the audience’s attention, you’ve failed, so you design accordingly. 

Apply the same principles to your resume. Since you have excellent credentials in the field, we won’t presume to give you design ideas, but keep in mind that the goals of an artist resume are different from the goals of an art project. Clarity and ease of navigation vie with memorability here.

You do need to show off your creativity, but make sure that when you do, you’ve maintained strong, separate sections, prominent contact information and modern, clean fonts. Don’t allow your use of color to detract from the content of your resume.

Take a look at our creative layouts for ideas and remember that resumes require formatting and detail work you may not want to bother with.

Our resume templates (along with the resume builder) will provide an outline and take care of the technical details so you can get your resume out there faster.

Artist text-only resume example

Artist job market and outlook

Art is a broad category that makes it difficult to predict your future opportunities. For example, the market for special effects artists and animators is projected to grow by 8% over the next decade, while the graphic design market growth is projected to be 3%.

Careers for those with art degrees include: art gallery manager, art teacher, animator, concept artist, graphic designer, museum curator, exhibition designer, video game designer, illustrator, photographer or interior designer.

What type of salary you can expect in art

Crafts and fine art professionals earn a median income of $53,140 per year, graphic designers earned $57,990, while special effects artists and animators earned close to 6 figures: $98,950 per year.

Key takeaways for building a artist resume

Yes, a portfolio is a must for any artist, but so is a resume. An artist resume fills in the outline by describing your artistic philosophy, work style and professional demeanor. Soft skills and your artistic values can make all the difference to an employer.

A resume also illustrates how the work in your portfolio came about and whether the work was a success according to your employer or client.

Resume.io’s resources can help you create a winning application package in no time!