Top 12 Commercial Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of commercial design, standing out to potential employers is crucial, and crafting a resume that highlights your unique skill set is key. This article will explore the top 12 skills that can elevate your resume, showcasing your expertise and making you a top contender for any commercial design position.

Commercial Designer Skills

1. Photoshop
2. Illustrator
3. InDesign
4. Sketch
5. Figma
6. UX/UI Design
7. Typography
8. Branding
9. Prototyping
10. After Effects
11. HTML/CSS
12. Responsive Design

1. Photoshop

Photoshop is a powerful digital imaging and graphics editing software widely used by commercial designers for creating, enhancing, and manipulating images and designs for various marketing and advertising materials.

Why It's Important

Photoshop is crucial for commercial designers as it offers advanced tools for creating, editing, and enhancing images and graphics, enabling the production of high-quality visual content for branding, advertising, and marketing purposes.

How to Improve Photoshop Skills

To enhance your Photoshop skills for commercial design, focus on the following strategies:

1. Master Layer Management: Efficiently organize and manage layers for quicker edits and adjustments. Adobe's Layer Basics provides an excellent starting point.

2. Refine Selection Techniques: Improving selection accuracy can significantly enhance your workflow. Explore Advanced Selections to learn more.

3. Leverage Adjustment Layers: Use adjustment layers for non-destructive editing, enabling flexible changes. Dive into Adjustment Layers for insights.

4. Incorporate Smart Objects: Smart Objects preserve an image's source content, facilitating non-destructive scaling and transformations. Learn about Smart Objects here.

5. Understand Color Management: Good color management ensures your design's colors remain consistent across various devices. Adobe's guide on Color Management is a valuable resource.

6. Explore 3D Design Tools: Adding 3D elements can set your designs apart. Start with Photoshop's 3D Design capabilities.

7. Automate Repetitive Tasks: Use actions and batch processing to automate repetitive tasks, saving time. Check out Automating Tasks for more information.

8. Stay Updated with New Features: Adobe frequently updates Photoshop with new tools and features. Keep an eye on What's New to stay ahead.

9. Experiment with Blending Modes: Blending modes can create dynamic effects for your designs. Familiarize yourself with Blending Modes to enhance your creativity.

10. Join Online Forums and Communities: Engage with other designers on platforms like Behance and Adobe Creative Cloud Community for inspiration, tips, and critiques.

By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve your Photoshop skills, making your workflow more efficient and your designs more compelling for commercial purposes.

How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume

2. Illustrator

Illustrator is a vector graphics editing software developed by Adobe, widely used by commercial designers for creating and manipulating digital illustrations, logos, and graphic designs with precision and scalability.

Why It's Important

Illustrator is crucial for a Commercial Designer as it provides powerful tools for creating scalable vector graphics, enabling precise, editable, and high-quality designs for branding, advertising, and packaging, essential for effective visual communication and professional commercial design work.

How to Improve Illustrator Skills

Improving your skills in Adobe Illustrator as a commercial designer involves mastering the tools, staying updated with new features, and integrating efficient workflows into your design process. Here are concise tips for enhancing your Illustrator proficiency:

1. Master the Pen Tool: It's essential for creating precise vector shapes. Practice regularly. Pen Tool Tutorial.
2. Use Layers Effectively: Organize your artwork for easier editing and manipulation. Layers Guide.
3. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts: Speed up your workflow significantly. Keyboard Shortcuts.
4. Explore the Appearance Panel: Add multiple strokes, fills, and effects to a single object. Appearance Panel Tips.
5. Utilize Global Colors: Make global changes to your color scheme easily. Global Colors Guide.
6. Stay Updated: Adobe regularly updates Illustrator. Familiarize yourself with new features. What's New.
7. Practice with Projects: Apply your skills to real-world projects or challenges. Behance for inspiration.
8. Take Online Courses: Expand your skill set with courses on platforms like LinkedIn Learning or Udemy.

By focusing on these areas, you can significantly improve your Illustrator skills, making your workflow more efficient and your designs more compelling.

How to Display Illustrator Skills on Your Resume

3. InDesign

InDesign is a professional desktop publishing software used by commercial designers to create, preflight, and publish documents for print, online, or mobile devices. It's widely used for designing flyers, brochures, magazines, advertisements, and other marketing materials.

Why It's Important

InDesign is crucial for a Commercial Designer as it offers advanced layout, typesetting, and design capabilities, enabling the creation of polished, professional documents such as flyers, brochures, magazines, and reports, essential for effective visual communication and branding.

How to Improve InDesign Skills

Improving your proficiency in Adobe InDesign as a commercial designer involves mastering both the technical aspects of the software and understanding design principles that enhance your projects' effectiveness. Here are concise tips for enhancing your InDesign skills:

1. Master Keyboard Shortcuts: Learn and use InDesign's keyboard shortcuts to speed up your workflow significantly. Adobe provides a comprehensive list (Adobe Keyboard Shortcuts).

2. Utilize Templates: Save time and maintain consistency by creating and using templates for your common projects. Adobe offers tutorials and resources (Adobe Templates).

3. Understand Typography: Improve the readability and appearance of your text by studying typography principles. Adobe has resources to get you started (Adobe Typography Tutorial).

4. Leverage GREP for Text Formatting: Learn GREP expressions to automate complex text formatting tasks. This guide from Adobe is a good starting point (Adobe GREP Guide).

5. Experiment with Effects: Explore InDesign's effects to add polish to your designs. Adobe’s guide can show you how (Adobe Effects Tutorial).

6. Stay Updated: Adobe frequently updates InDesign. Keep your software up to date and explore new features. Check Adobe’s What’s New page (Adobe What’s New).

7. Practice Color Management: Understand and apply color management principles to ensure your colors look consistent across various media. Adobe’s color management guide can help (Adobe Color Management).

8. Participate in Online Communities: Join forums and social media groups where professionals share tips and offer feedback. LinkedIn groups and the Adobe Support Community (Adobe Support Community) are great places to start.

9. Attend Workshops and Webinars: Enhance your skills by attending Adobe workshops and webinars. Adobe regularly hosts events that can be found here (Adobe Events).

10. Experiment and Practice: Lastly, the best way to improve is by continuously working on diverse projects and experimenting with different design elements.

By focusing on these areas, you’ll not only improve your proficiency in InDesign but also enhance your overall design capabilities, making you more effective and efficient as a commercial designer.

How to Display InDesign Skills on Your Resume

4. Sketch

Sketch is a vector-based design tool primarily used by commercial designers for creating user interfaces, websites, and icons, offering features like wireframing, prototyping, and collaboration.

Why It's Important

Sketch is important for a Commercial Designer because it provides a fast and intuitive platform for creating high-fidelity UI/UX designs, enabling efficient iteration and collaboration with stakeholders, ensuring the visual and functional aspects of commercial projects meet market needs and user expectations.

How to Improve Sketch Skills

Improving your Sketch skills as a Commercial Designer involves a combination of mastering the software's tools, streamlining your workflow, and staying updated with the latest design trends and techniques. Here are concise tips and relevant resources:

1. Master the Basics: Ensure you understand all the fundamental tools and features Sketch offers. Sketch's official documentation is a great starting point.

2. Use Plugins: Enhance your productivity and capabilities in Sketch by integrating plugins. Explore popular ones on the Sketch Plugin Directory.

3. Follow Tutorials: Continuously learn through tutorials. Websites like Sketch App Sources offer numerous tutorials catering to various skill levels.

4. Understand UI/UX Principles: As a Commercial Designer, creating intuitive and visually appealing designs is crucial. Resources like Nielsen Norman Group offer valuable insights into UI/UX best practices.

5. Practice Regularly: Like any skill, proficiency in Sketch comes with regular practice. Work on real-world projects or set yourself challenges to apply what you've learned.

6. Stay Updated: Sketch frequently updates with new features and improvements. Keep an eye on the Sketch updates page to stay informed.

7. Join the Community: Engage with other Sketch users through forums, social media, and local meetups. The Sketch community is a great place to start.

By following these tips and making the most of the provided resources, you can significantly improve your proficiency and efficiency in Sketch, ultimately enhancing your capabilities as a Commercial Designer.

How to Display Sketch Skills on Your Resume

5. Figma

Figma is a cloud-based design tool that allows commercial designers to create, collaborate on, and share interface designs for websites and mobile apps in real-time.

Why It's Important

Figma is crucial for commercial designers because it facilitates seamless collaboration in real-time, streamlines design workflows with its comprehensive tools and integrations, and enables quick iteration and feedback, enhancing productivity and the quality of design outcomes.

How to Improve Figma Skills

To improve your Figma skills as a Commercial Designer, focus on mastering the following areas:

1. Component Mastery: Deepen your understanding of components and variants for efficient design systems. Figma's Component Guide is a great starting point.

2. Prototyping and Animation: Enhance interactive design capabilities. Study Figma's Prototyping Guide for insights.

3. Collaboration Techniques: Leverage Figma's collaboration tools. Figma's Collaboration Guide offers strategies for teamwork.

4. Efficiency with Plugins: Explore plugins to streamline your workflow. Visit Figma's Plugin Page to find tools tailored to commercial design needs.

5. Auto Layout Mastery: Understand Auto Layout to create responsive designs. Figma's Auto Layout Guide is essential.

By focusing on these areas and continuously exploring new features and community resources, you can significantly enhance your Figma proficiency for commercial design projects.

How to Display Figma Skills on Your Resume

6. UX/UI Design

UX/UI Design involves creating user-friendly and visually appealing interfaces for digital products to enhance user satisfaction and engagement. In a commercial context, it focuses on optimizing the customer journey to maximize conversions and loyalty.

Why It's Important

UX/UI Design is crucial for a Commercial Designer because it enhances user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product, directly impacting customer retention and conversion rates, thereby influencing a business's success.

How to Improve UX/UI Design Skills

Improving UX/UI design involves focusing on user needs, simplifying interactions, and ensuring consistency across the design. Here are concise strategies:

1. Understand Your Users: Conduct user research to understand their needs, preferences, and pain points. Nielsen Norman Group offers insights on various user research methods.

2. Simplify Navigation: Design intuitive and straightforward navigation. Ensure users can easily find what they're looking for. Smashing Magazine provides examples and inspiration for effective navigation.

3. Ensure Consistency: Maintain visual and functional consistency throughout your design. This includes typography, color schemes, and element placement. Adobe discusses the importance of consistency in UI/UX design.

4. Optimize for Accessibility: Make your design accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. WebAIM offers guidelines and tools for improving accessibility.

5. Iterate Based on Feedback: Continuously test your design with real users and iterate based on their feedback. Usability.gov outlines strategies for user testing and feedback.

6. Stay Updated with Trends: Keep abreast of the latest design trends and technologies, but prioritize usability over aesthetics. Awwwards showcases cutting-edge web designs for inspiration.

By focusing on these areas, commercial designers can significantly enhance the UX/UI of their projects, leading to better user satisfaction and engagement.

How to Display UX/UI Design Skills on Your Resume

7. Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed, particularly important in commercial design for branding, advertising, and creating visual communication.

Why It's Important

Typography is crucial for a Commercial Designer as it significantly influences brand recognition, communicates message clarity, and enhances readability, directly impacting customer engagement and perception.

How to Improve Typography Skills

Improving typography as a Commercial Designer involves understanding and applying fundamental principles effectively. Here are concise tips:

1. Hierarchy: Establish a clear hierarchy using size, color, and placement to guide the reader’s attention. Adobe's Guide on Hierarchy.

2. Contrast: Employ contrast between typefaces for emphasis and to create dynamic compositions. Canva's Tips on Contrast.

3. Consistency: Maintain consistency in your typography to ensure coherence across your design. Visme's Rules on Consistency.

4. Legibility: Choose typefaces and adjust spacing to ensure text is easily legible at various sizes. Creative Bloq on Legibility.

5. Whitespace: Utilize whitespace effectively to prevent clutter and improve readability. Smashing Magazine on Whitespace.

6. Alignment: Use alignment to create a clean, organized look that enhances readability. Canva on Alignment.

7. Typography Tools and Resources: Leverage tools and resources like Google Fonts for access to a diverse range of typefaces. Google Fonts.

By focusing on these key areas, you can significantly improve the quality and impact of your typography in commercial design projects.

How to Display Typography Skills on Your Resume

8. Branding

Branding in commercial design refers to the creation and development of distinctive visual elements and strategies that represent a company’s identity, values, and offerings, aiming to establish recognition and emotional connection with the target audience.

Why It's Important

Branding is crucial for a Commercial Designer as it differentiates products or services in the market, establishes a recognizable identity, builds trust with customers, and significantly influences purchasing decisions.

How to Improve Branding Skills

Improving branding, especially for a commercial designer, involves a strategic blend of understanding your audience, consistent visual language, and innovative engagement. Here are concise steps to enhance your branding efforts:

1. Understand Your Audience: Conduct market research to grasp your target demographic's preferences and pain points. Tailor your branding to resonate with them.

2. Develop a Strong Brand Identity: Create a compelling logo and a consistent visual language (color scheme, typography) that reflects your brand’s personality. Adobe's guide on creating a brand identity is a helpful resource.

3. Consistent Brand Messaging: Ensure your brand's message is clear, consistent, and communicated effectively across all platforms. HubSpot’s brand messaging framework can guide you.

4. Engage on Social Media: Use social media platforms to connect with your audience. Share relevant content, interact with followers, and showcase your brand's human side. Sprout Social offers strategies for branding on social media.

5. Create Quality Content: Produce high-quality, valuable content that addresses your audience's needs and interests. This can include blogs, videos, infographics, and more. Content Marketing Institute’s guide can help you get started.

6. Leverage Testimonials and Case Studies: Showcase your success stories and customer testimonials to build trust and credibility. Boast’s tips on using testimonials provide practical insights.

7. Innovate and Stay Relevant: Keep up with industry trends and be open to evolving your brand to stay relevant. Innovation can differentiate your brand in a crowded marketplace.

By focusing on understanding your audience, maintaining consistency in your brand messaging, engaging effectively on social media, producing valuable content, leveraging customer success stories, and staying innovative, you can significantly improve your branding as a commercial designer.

How to Display Branding Skills on Your Resume

9. Prototyping

Prototyping in commercial design is the process of creating a preliminary model of a product to visualize and test its functionality, design, and usability before mass production.

Why It's Important

Prototyping is crucial for commercial designers as it allows for the visualization and testing of a product's design, functionality, and user experience before mass production, ensuring it meets both the client's requirements and market needs efficiently and cost-effectively.

How to Improve Prototyping Skills

Improving prototyping, especially for a commercial designer, involves a few concise steps aimed at enhancing efficiency, creativity, and client satisfaction. Here's how:

1. Understand the Problem: Start with a clear understanding of the problem you're solving. Engage with stakeholders to gather insights (IDEO's Design Kit).

2. Iterate Quickly: Use rapid prototyping tools to iterate designs quickly. Tools like Adobe XD and Sketch are great for digital prototyping.

3. Gather Feedback: Early and often. Use platforms like UserTesting to gather user feedback on prototypes.

4. Simplify: Focus on key features. Use principles from The Lean Startup to prototype only the essential to solve the problem.

5. Collaborate: Work closely with your team. Tools like InVision facilitate collaboration by allowing team members to give live feedback on prototypes.

6. Test Materially: For physical products, use 3D printing and materials testing to get a real sense of the product. Shapeways offers accessible 3D printing services.

7. Refine Continuously: Based on feedback, refine your prototype. Remember, prototyping is an iterative process; perfection is not the goal, learning is.

8. Use Prototyping Software: Leverage software specifically designed for prototyping to save time and resources. Figma is a powerful tool for digital product design, offering real-time collaboration.

By focusing on these areas, commercial designers can enhance their prototyping process, leading to more innovative solutions and successful products.

How to Display Prototyping Skills on Your Resume

10. After Effects

After Effects is a digital visual effects and motion graphics software used by commercial designers for creating complex animations, visual effects, and video compositions for commercials, online content, and other marketing materials.

Why It's Important

After Effects is crucial for a Commercial Designer as it enables the creation of dynamic, visually compelling motion graphics and visual effects, enhancing the storytelling and engagement of commercial content.

How to Improve After Effects Skills

To enhance your proficiency and efficiency in After Effects as a Commercial Designer, consider the following concise strategies:

1. Master Keyboard Shortcuts: Learning and using keyboard shortcuts can drastically speed up your workflow. Adobe provides a comprehensive list of After Effects shortcuts.

2. Use Templates and Presets: Start with professionally designed templates and presets for quick results. MotionElements offers a variety of After Effects templates.

3. Optimize Performance: Adjust After Effects preferences and your computer settings for optimal performance. Adobe's guide on optimizing performance in After Effects offers valuable tips.

4. Stay Updated: Ensure you're using the latest version of After Effects for access to new features and performance improvements. Check for updates via the Creative Cloud application or the Adobe website.

5. Learn from Experts: Expand your skill set by learning from industry professionals. Websites like School of Motion provide courses tailored for commercial designers.

6. Utilize Expressions & Scripts: Automate repetitive tasks and create complex animations efficiently using expressions and scripts. The AE Scripts platform is a valuable resource for finding tools that can enhance your workflow.

7. Get Feedback: Use platforms like Behance to showcase your work and receive feedback from the design community, helping you improve and innovate.

By incorporating these strategies into your workflow, you can significantly enhance your productivity and creative output in After Effects.

How to Display After Effects Skills on Your Resume

11. HTML/CSS

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the standard markup language used to create and structure content on the web, defining elements such as headings, paragraphs, and images. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in HTML, controlling layout, colors, and fonts. Together, HTML and CSS enable commercial designers to craft visually appealing and functional websites.

Why It's Important

HTML/CSS is critical for a Commercial Designer as it enables the creation of visually appealing, responsive, and user-friendly web interfaces, ensuring effective brand communication and engagement with the target audience.

How to Improve HTML/CSS Skills

Improving your HTML/CSS skills as a Commercial Designer involves a combination of practice, understanding design principles, and staying updated with the latest web technologies. Here are concise tips and resources:

1. Practice Regularly: Build projects of varying complexities. Websites like CodePen and GitHub allow you to experiment and share your work.

2. Learn Responsive Design: Understand how to make designs work on all devices. Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) offers excellent guides.

3. Master CSS Frameworks: Frameworks like Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS speed up the development process and ensure consistency.

4. Utilize Preprocessors: Learn CSS preprocessors like Sass to write more maintainable and extendable CSS.

5. Understand UI/UX Principles: Enhance user experience by following best practices in UI/UX design. Nielsen Norman Group provides valuable insights.

6. Follow Accessibility Guidelines: Make your designs accessible to all users by adhering to WCAG guidelines.

7. Stay Updated: Web technologies evolve rapidly. Follow blogs like CSS-Tricks and Smashing Magazine for the latest trends and techniques.

By integrating these practices into your workflow and continuously seeking out new knowledge, you'll significantly improve your HTML/CSS skills and enhance your value as a Commercial Designer.

How to Display HTML/CSS Skills on Your Resume

12. Responsive Design

Responsive Design is an approach in web design that ensures a website's layout and content automatically adjust for optimal viewing and interaction across various screen sizes and devices, enhancing the user experience for all visitors.

Why It's Important

Responsive design ensures a website adapts to any screen size, providing an optimal viewing experience across various devices (like smartphones, tablets, and desktops). For a commercial designer, this maximizes user engagement, improves accessibility, and boosts the potential for conversions, making it essential for reaching a wider audience and achieving commercial goals efficiently.

How to Improve Responsive Design Skills

To improve Responsive Design, focus on these key strategies:

1. Flexible Grids: Ensure your layout adapts dynamically to different screen sizes using fluid grid systems. CSS-Tricks offers a comprehensive guide on CSS Grid.

2. Responsive Images: Implement images that scale appropriately to save bandwidth and improve load times. The MDN Web Docs provide detailed instructions on creating responsive images.

3. Media Queries: Utilize CSS media queries to apply different styles for different devices and resolutions, enhancing user experience across devices. W3Schools offers a simple tutorial on using media queries.

4. Typography: Ensure readability across devices by adjusting font sizes and line heights. Smashing Magazine has an excellent article on fluid typography.

5. Touch Targets: Design interactive elements (buttons, links) to be easily clickable on touch devices, following accessibility and usability guidelines. Google Web Fundamentals provides insights into designing for touch.

Incorporating these practices will create a more seamless and user-friendly responsive design, essential for commercial designers aiming to reach a broad audience effectively.

How to Display Responsive Design Skills on Your Resume