Wave rhythm
Design · Advertising
Blue main column and rounded label headings, ideal for creative roles.
Accent colour
Unconventional and striking
Creative CV templates
Unconventional layouts, strong colours and plenty of room for images. Ideal for advertising, content, events and roles where personality counts.
Impact from the first lineYour name and target position stand out, making your CV memorable.Room for images and work samplesPortraits or work images are well balanced and never crowd the text.Strong colours, still readableColour pairs are contrast-tuned, so text stays clear even in black and white.
Peach & jade
Restaurants · Hotels
Bright peach and jade with friendly rounded blocks.
Accent colour
Palette
Design · Creative
Pastel cards in the sidebar and a round photo with a coloured ring.
Accent colour
Bold
Arts · Television
Black and lime yellow in strong contrast.
Accent colour
When a creative CV template helps, and when it gets you rejected in the first round
A creative CV template is a double-edged sword: at an advertising agency it shows you understand visuals and dare to be different; at a bank or in screening software it gets your information misread or puts you in the "not serious" pile. Việc Hot has 4 creative CV templates with unconventional layouts, strong colours and space for images. The sections below cover who should use them, how far to break the rules, where the portfolio goes and the backup version.
Who should use a creative CV template
Copywriters, art directors, content creators, video editors, event organisers, PR specialists, social media managers and brand teams at agencies and consumer brands. The people hiring for these roles are creative directors or team leads, and they treat the CV as the first test of taste. To them, a correct black-and-white CV is not wrong, but a CV with an idea is the one they remember.
| Position | Reasonable degree of experimentation | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Copywriter, content | Reasonable degree of experimentationHigh: wordplay, a distinctive voice | NoteKeep standard section headings |
| Art director, design | Reasonable degree of experimentationHigh: grid, colour and type with a style of their own | NoteThe portfolio still decides |
| Events, PR, social media | Reasonable degree of experimentationModerate: one focal point, thumbnail images | NoteFigures on scale matter more than visuals |
| Accounting, banking, engineering, public sector | Reasonable degree of experimentationNot advisable | NoteUse a professional or ATS-friendly template |
Break the rules, but with control
One idea carried all the way through works better than many odd details. CVs written as an advertising brief, a magazine page or a storyboard have all led to interviews; CVs with five fonts, four colours and text running diagonally have not. Keep three things fixed: familiar section headings, clear dates, and body text no smaller than 10 pt. Use the strong colour for one large area (the header background or a sidebar) and keep the content on a light background. Work samples, if you include them, shrink into a strip of thumbnails, each with a one-line project name.
The portfolio is the main part; the CV is the way in
In creative fields, recruiters click the portfolio link before they finish reading the CV. Put the link to your Behance, Dribbble, personal website or Drive folder right next to your name, check the access permissions, and add a QR code if the CV will be printed. In the CV itself, choose three to five representative projects and give the client or brand, your role, what you did and the result for each.
One project, fully described in three lines
Lunar New Year 2026 campaign for a soft drinks brand (lead copywriter at the agency): wrote 12 short video scripts and all social media content over 6 weeks; two videos were among the brand's most viewed that quarter, and the campaign reached more than 20 million people according to the report sent to the client.
Show creativity through your work, not the skills section
Do not write "creative" in the skills section; recruiters in this field have read it thousands of times. Let the results speak instead: awards, campaigns the client renewed, how many of the ideas you pitched were approved, channels that gained followers, posts that were widely shared. For skills, name specific tools: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, CapCut, Figma, Canva, together with what you have made with each.
A backup version of your creative CV for screening software
Applicant tracking software reads a CV from top to bottom and left to right, so two-column layouts, text inside images, icons in place of labels and creative section headings all make it parse incorrectly. On Việc Hot, your CV content is filled in from your profile, so you can switch from the 4 creative templates to an ATS-friendly template without retyping, then download two PDFs with different names. Sending the right version to the right place is a small step, but it decides whether your application gets opened at all.
Mistakes that get creative CVs rejected
- White 8 pt text on a coloured background that cannot be read once printed.
- A portrait photo taking up half the page, leaving only four lines for experience.
- Section headings renamed "Journey", "Weapons" or "Superpowers", leaving the reader to guess.
- A broken portfolio link, a Drive folder with viewing locked, or no link at all.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The CV is only the way in; recruiters in creative fields decide on the basis of the portfolio. Without a portfolio link, even a beautiful CV rarely gets a call.
A standard PDF export from Canva is still a text-based PDF, but two-column layouts and text inside graphics are often parsed incorrectly. When applying through a recruitment portal, use a one-column version to be safe.
There is no need. Choose the version that suits the channel: the creative one for direct emails and your portfolio, the one-column one for recruitment portals.