During our Creative Industries module, we began work on putting together our industry resources for applying to different studios and jobs for placement / after graduation. We were first encouraged to do research into several job roles and studios with current role openings, which we would then base our CV around based on the role we wanted.
Firstly, I went to the website ScreenSkills, which features job descriptions for the creative industry and investigated several job roles in the animation section. I knew that I wanted to go for a role that would best suit my interests, along with something that is accessible as an entry level job. These included:
-Concept Artist
-Storyboard Artist (Entry)
-Animator (Entry)
-Character Designer
-Compositor (Entry)
After researching these roles, and taking into consideration my own skillset, I decided to go with branding myself as a 2D & 3D Animator for my CV, also listing off the other roles to show my more adaptive skillset to potential employers. Furthermore, I also researched several studios through LinkedIn to get a better understanding of what criteria I would need to fulfil, and what companies I would be interested in working with.
I then started work on putting together my CV, using a previous version I had made before as a base. Below is the final version of my CV, along with a black and white version that I used to check the tone & values.
Some of the additional feedback I received on previous versions of my CV were that I should try and fit in all my information on the one page, and that a second page is only needed depending on how long my ‘Job Experience’ section is, so I was advised to move some of the smaller points to the side bar, along with bringing my ‘Work Experience section closer to the top and to ensure it’s the biggest section on the page as that’s the portion that employers look to the most, hence it needed to be eye-catching. Additionally, I was also advised to use simpler bullet point designs in some of my sections.
When getting feedback on my initial drafts as well from a lecturer, I was also shown a previous student’s CV who also went for a pink colour palette similar to me, that being Courtney Stockman’s which I have included below.
I referred back to the visual style of her CV several times when adjusting my own, which greatly benefited me and gave me a proper understanding of how to format my CV to appear professional.
Below are also previous drafts of my CV, showing the progression of the initial idea to the final version. During one of our lectures, we were advised to consider branding ourselves to stand out more, and I got the idea to use a red galaxy as a theme, including an edited picture as a side border to test the idea. Whilst I personally really liked the idea, part of the feedback I was given on the first draft was that the red galaxy was too distracting, and so I greatly altered the design to a simple colour palette.
Draft 1:
Draft 2:
Draft 3:
Draft 4:
In addition, below are additional star designs I drew to push the space theming of the earlier CV drafts further. Whilst I find their inclusion appealing, that level of detail is not meant for a CV, hence their removal.
Lastly, I also took the time to create a logo for myself to include in my CV, which is seen below.
My logo reuses the initial red galaxy design that I initially had for my CV and is also inspired by my own signature through how I drew a simplistic red galaxy as the background and included a shooting star motif in the lettering. I found myself really enjoying the design, feeling it communicates the type of branding I want for myself whilst still looking simplistic enough in my eyes to work as a logo.
To summarise, whilst I wish I was able to put more original ideas into the final draft of my CV, I had to learn that it was a professional piece of material, rather than a creative art project. And overall, I find myself happy with the final version.