Creating my CV, cover letter and showreel
After gathering ideas and research, I decided to start putting together my own CV. I wanted to go for a very simple and clean design that was attractive and easily readable. Using Publisher, I began experimenting with some layout ideas, finally settling on a yellow panel on the left with a lighter panel beside it to fade slightly into the white. I thought using yellow was a good idea to make my CV look friendly and inviting.
I saved a space at the top left of the page to put my logo and added subheadings underneath, separated with a white dividing line. I thought this worked well, tying into my colour scheme and separating text. After some experimenting, I put my name fully along the top and my focus underneath. Adding in software icons instead of listing them as text helped to make my CV less text heavy and intimidating. I also added symbols beside my contact details, which I feel draws your eyes to them more. My interests were added in at the bottom left and shown as icons to tie in with everything else in the side panel. This was an idea I found while looking though other CVs and thought it worked well to show character.
I added a personal profile section to give a brief insight into my qualities and current studies. I then listed my qualifications, awards and lastly added a reference at the bottom. The reference was something I noticed a lot of past students putting on their CV and I thought it was a good idea to provide a contact to someone who knows you and has seen your work.
I had a one on one feedback session with Aodhan, which was incredibly helpful. He pointed out my colour scheme making my CV look very similar to a restaurant menu… which now that I look at it, really does! Another point was to change my font choice as it looked old and blocky. As this CV is directed at jobs in the animation industry, this is the opposite style I should be going for – I need to keep it looking modern. I was also told that I didn’t need to include my address.
Taking this feedback, I went over my CV, removing the address and changing the font to a more round, bubbly text, which definitely makes my CV look far nicer and less rigid.
I thought it would be best to base my colour scheme off my logo, so I began gathering some different design styles I liked. I wanted it to include my initials to represented me.
A video I found very useful before starting to experiment with some designs was:
He explained how to create an interesting monogram and showed his process. I feel that having the same letter makes things a little more difficult.
For more clean and professional lines, I used Adobe Illustrator to create a sheet of different logo ideas.
It was very hard to choose which of out of these I liked best, so I asked some of my friends and family members for their opinion. These were the few that were most popular:
After seeing them placed on my CV, I settled on the 3rd one as I thought it looked the neatest and most professional. The first one closely resembles a moustache, which perhaps isn’t the best way to brand myself 😀
I began testing out different colours for this shape…
Then taking my favourite three, I wanted to see how I could fit them into the CV using their colour palette. This was a lot of trial and error.
…much harder to choose than I had originally thought. And after way too much time spent trying to narrow them down and asking for other opinions, I ended up with these two:
I then asked Alec’s opinion on which he thought looked better, and he chose the first one. Thankfully, that was the last decision that I procrastinated over.
“I’ll give you a definite maybe.” – Sam Goldwyn
Final version of my CV
Now that I had something to base it off, designing my cover letter was relatively straightforward. To keep my work cohesive, I rotated the blue panel on the left side to fit at the top also moving my name, logo and contact details to fit inside. When writing my cover letter I read a lot of past students beforehand and looked online for some examples to use as a base to build from.
I was applying for the job role of Junior Animator in Supermassive Games.
I wanted to sound very complimentary and enthusiastic without seeming childish. I think this came across well and overall I’m very happy with how the letter reads.
I made a Youtube playlist with showreels that inspired me.
My favourite one in terms of editing, is this one:
The music they chose goes very well with their animations and everything is timed perfectly to fit in and look fluid. I think they did a really good job with the order of their clips and cutting some of them, revisiting the next half of the clip further into the reel. It really helps to tie everything together and it all looks very impressive.
I wanted to keep my showreel purely 3D animation, however this was difficult as I didn’t have much work to include seeing as this medium is new to me. Although I think I still managed to include enough to keep it interesting and with the added poses towards the end it comes to a good time which I’m pleased with.
I tried to fit each clip to the music without cutting too much off the clip and leaving myself with even less animation work.
Making sure my theme was consistent, I made the card with my contact details on the start and end screen match my CV and cover letter. I tried to put my best work first as this would be the the employers first impression of my work.
Overall, I’m happy with the result but I would like to continue to update it as I complete more work. I would also like to create a separate showreel for some of my 3D models. One thing I would improve on if I were to do this again would be the poses near the end – I feel like I could have adjusted those better to flow into each other more smoothly.