Top 12 Commercial Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of commercial design, standing out to potential employers matters, and a resume that telegraphs your strengths without fluff does the heavy lifting. Below, the top 12 skills that lift your portfolio and your pitch—clear, current, and built to make you a serious contender.

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 powerhouse for image editing and compositing, used to craft marketing visuals, retouch photos, build ads, and polish brand assets with tight control over detail and tone.

Why It's Important

It’s the go-to for non-destructive editing, color control, and creative effects. When deadlines press, those tools translate into fast iteration and razor-sharp deliverables for campaigns and brand work.

How to Improve Photoshop Skills

Sharpen your approach with these focus points:

1. Master Layer Management: Use groups, color labels, and naming conventions so edits stay clean and swift.

2. Refine Selections: Practice Select and Mask, channels, and edge refinements for precise cutouts.

3. Leverage Adjustment Layers: Keep edits reversible. Stack and mask for nuanced control.

4. Use Smart Objects: Preserve source quality and enable scalable, non-destructive transforms.

5. Dial in Color Management: Calibrate displays, set correct profiles, and proof for print vs. web.

6. Explore Generative Features: Experiment with Generative Fill and Neural Filters to speed exploration and cleanup.

7. Automate Repetitive Tasks: Actions and batch processing save hours on routine production.

8. Stay Current: New features drop often. Fold the useful ones into your workflow quickly.

9. Experiment with Blending Modes: Layer modes can conjure subtle depth or bold effects with minimal effort.

10. Engage Communities: Share work, seek critique, and trade techniques with peers.

Dialing in these habits makes your Photoshop output faster, cleaner, and more persuasive.

How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume

2. Illustrator

Illustrator is the standard for vector graphics—logos, icons, packaging marks, and scalable illustrations that stay crisp at any size.

Why It's Important

Brand systems lean on vectors. Precision curves, reusable assets, and infinite scalability keep print, digital, and environmental media consistent.

How to Improve Illustrator Skills

Focus your practice here:

1. Pen Tool fluency: Build muscle memory for bezier control and clean paths.
2. Layers and groups: Structure files for painless edits and handoffs.
3. Shortcuts: Trim the clicks; speed compounds over large projects.
4. Appearance panel: Stack multiple fills/strokes and effects on a single object.
5. Global colors: Update palettes across documents with one change.
6. Brushes, symbols, graphic styles: Create reusable components that stay consistent.
7. Type on a path and variable fonts: Add range without losing control.
8. Practice with real briefs: Work through logo suites, icon sets, and packaging comps.

The result: flexible artwork and tidy files that print and export cleanly.

How to Display Illustrator Skills on Your Resume

3. InDesign

InDesign is built for layout—magazines, brochures, catalogs, reports, and any multi-page system that demands typographic control and production-ready output.

Why It's Important

It blends master pages, styles, smart typography, and preflight into one environment, so teams can produce polished publications that print reliably and export crisply.

How to Improve InDesign Skills

Level up with:

1. Keyboard shortcuts: Speed up everything—text edits, frame tweaks, style application.

2. Templates and libraries: Standardize grids, color, and components for consistent series work.

3. Typographic finesse: Kerning, tracking, hyphenation, ligatures, optical alignment—make text breathe.

4. Paragraph/character styles: Lock in hierarchy and update documents in seconds.

5. GREP styles and Find/Change: Automate repetitive formatting with pattern rules.

6. Object styles: Apply design rules to frames, images, and captions instantly.

7. Color management and preflight: Prevent output surprises before they happen.

8. Data merge: Generate variants at scale for catalogs and mailers.

9. PDF export presets: Match print specs and reduce file bloat for digital.

10. Practice with long-form docs: TOCs, indexes, cross-references—build real publishing stamina.

These habits cut errors and compress production timelines without sacrificing polish.

How to Display InDesign Skills on Your Resume

4. Sketch

Sketch is a vector-based UI tool favored for component-driven interfaces, iconography, and clean handoffs, especially in macOS-centered teams.

Why It's Important

Its speed and simplicity make it great for interface systems, with tidy symbols and libraries that keep teams aligned.

How to Improve Sketch Skills

Target these areas:

1. Symbols and libraries: Build scalable design systems that stay consistent across files.

2. Auto Layout-like constraints: Set resizing rules for components that adapt gracefully.

3. Plugins: Extend power for icons, content, and batch operations.

4. Grids and spacing tokens: Standardize rhythm to reduce UI drift.

5. Prototyping basics: Link flows for quick demos without leaving Sketch.

6. UI/UX principles: Prioritize clarity, hierarchy, and predictable patterns.

7. Practice: Rebuild real products to stress-test your system thinking.

With a disciplined component library, deliverables get faster and far more consistent.

How to Display Sketch Skills on Your Resume

5. Figma

Figma is a cloud-first design platform for real-time collaboration on web and app interfaces, prototypes, and design systems.

Why It's Important

Live collaboration, components and variants, Auto Layout, and comments collapse the gap between design, product, and engineering—speeding feedback loops and reducing rework.

How to Improve Figma Skills

Concentrate on:

1. Components and variants: Scale systems cleanly with structured props and states.

2. Auto Layout: Create responsive components and layouts that adapt without manual nudging.

3. Prototyping and smart animations: Convey flows, microinteractions, and transitions clearly.

4. Collaboration: Use comments, version history, and branching for sane teamwork.

5. Plugins: Accelerate tasks like content population, accessibility checks, and exports.

Master these and your files become living systems rather than static comps.

How to Display Figma Skills on Your Resume

6. UX/UI Design

UX/UI design blends research, interaction patterns, and visual craft to make digital products easy, engaging, and conversion-friendly.

Why It's Important

It raises retention, trims friction, and turns attention into action—vital for commercial outcomes.

How to Improve UX/UI Design Skills

Keep it sharp with:

1. Know your users: Interviews, surveys, and usability tests reveal real needs and sticking points.

2. Streamline navigation: Clear IA, fewer steps, and visible cues reduce cognitive load.

3. Consistency: Design tokens, patterns, and system rules keep experiences coherent.

4. Accessibility: Color contrast, focus states, semantics, and keyboard support—make it usable for everyone.

5. Iterate: Prototype, test, refine. Repeat often, ship smarter.

6. Pragmatic trends: Track what’s new, adopt only what improves clarity and outcomes.

Great UX/UI is measured in fewer support tickets, higher conversions, happier users.

How to Display UX/UI Design Skills on Your Resume

7. Typography

Typography is the craft of arranging type for readability, rhythm, and brand voice—where tone and clarity meet.

Why It's Important

It shapes perception, guides attention, and makes content legible across formats—crucial for trust and conversion.

How to Improve Typography Skills

Dial in the fundamentals:

1. Hierarchy: Use size, weight, and placement to signal what matters first.

2. Contrast: Mix scale, weight, and whitespace to create dynamic, readable layouts.

3. Consistency: Limit families, set rules, and stick to them across assets.

4. Legibility: Choose families suited to the medium; fine-tune line length, leading, and tracking.

5. Whitespace: Give type room to breathe—readers move faster, and messages land cleaner.

6. Alignment: Align on a grid to keep order and rhythm.

7. Typeface curation: Build a smart library (including variable fonts) with licensing in mind.

Good type gets noticed by how easy it is to read, not how loudly it shouts.

How to Display Typography Skills on Your Resume

8. Branding

Branding defines how a company looks, sounds, and feels—visual identity, voice, and the connective tissue that creates recognition and trust.

Why It's Important

It separates you from the noise, signals value, and anchors loyalty. In crowded markets, the story and system win.

How to Improve Branding Skills

Build with intent:

1. Know your audience: Map motivations, barriers, and language. Design to resonate, not just impress.

2. Identity system: Logo, color, type, image rules, motion—consistent and flexible.

3. Messaging hierarchy: Clarify promise, proof, and tone. Repeat it everywhere.

4. Social presence: Show up with useful content, not noise. Engage like a person, not a billboard.

5. Content quality: Make articles, videos, and guides that actually help. Substance builds trust.

6. Proof: Case studies and testimonials reduce risk in the buyer’s mind.

7. Evolve: Track performance, watch the market, refresh before you feel stale.

Strong branding is a system that scales across channels without losing its voice.

How to Display Branding Skills on Your Resume

9. Prototyping

Prototyping turns ideas into testable artifacts—flows, interactions, or physical models—so teams can learn fast and pivot sooner.

Why It's Important

It exposes friction early, reduces rework, and aligns stakeholders around something tangible—before it’s expensive to change.

How to Improve Prototyping Skills

Make it lean and learning-focused:

1. Frame the problem: Clarify the job-to-be-done and success criteria before you build.

2. Iterate quickly: Use tools like Figma, Sketch, or Framer to explore flows at speed.

3. Collect feedback early: Short tests beat long debates. Watch real users, then adjust.

4. Prioritize essentials: Prototype the riskiest assumptions first; ignore the rest.

5. Collaborate: Use Figma comments, FigJam, or Miro for shared context and fast alignment.

6. For physical prototypes: 3D print, mock with quick materials, and test ergonomics and durability.

7. Refine continuously: Each round should answer a question. Ship the learning, not the polish.

8. Leverage advanced tools when needed: Try ProtoPie or Principle for nuanced interactions.

Good prototypes shrink risk and sharpen decisions.

How to Display Prototyping Skills on Your Resume

10. After Effects

After Effects handles motion graphics and visual effects—animated logos, kinetic type, explainer scenes, and social ads that need punch.

Why It's Important

Motion sells stories fast. It clarifies messaging, adds energy, and boosts engagement where attention is thin.

How to Improve After Effects Skills

Work smarter, not just longer:

1. Keyboard shortcuts: Cut timeline wrangling and focus on ideas.

2. Templates and presets: Start from solid foundations to hit deadlines without reinventing wheels.

3. Optimize performance: Trim heavy comps, cache smartly, and balance resolution with render time.

4. Stay updated: New features and performance tweaks add up over projects.

5. Keep learning: Tutorials and courses from seasoned motion designers accelerate growth.

6. Expressions and scripts: Automate repetition, link properties, and create complex behaviors cleanly.

7. Seek critique: Fresh eyes reveal pacing, clarity, and hierarchy issues you’ll miss.

Your motion work should communicate first, dazzle second. In that order.

How to Display After Effects Skills on Your Resume

11. HTML/CSS

HTML structures content; CSS shapes its look and layout. Together they turn static designs into responsive, accessible interfaces.

Why It's Important

Knowing the basics means cleaner handoffs, realistic designs, and collaboration that respects how the web actually works.

How to Improve HTML/CSS Skills

Level up with pragmatic practice:

1. Build often: Recreate real pages, components, and layouts. Share your code and iterate.

2. Responsive thinking: Start fluid, then refine with breakpoints. Test on real devices.

3. Frameworks wisely: Learn Tailwind or Bootstrap, but understand vanilla CSS under the hood.

4. Preprocessors: Use Sass for variables, nesting, and maintainable structures.

5. UI/UX principles: Design choices should serve clarity and speed, not novelty.

6. Accessibility: Semantic HTML, contrast, focus order, ARIA where necessary—bake it in early.

7. Keep current: Modern CSS (Grid, Flexbox, container queries) solves old problems elegantly.

Strong HTML/CSS chops help you design what can actually be built—beautifully.

How to Display HTML/CSS Skills on Your Resume

12. Responsive Design

Responsive design ensures sites adapt layout, media, and type to any screen—phone, tablet, desktop—without breaking a sweat.

Why It's Important

It widens reach, improves usability, and supports conversions across devices. In plain terms: more people can act on what you’ve made.

How to Improve Responsive Design Skills

Make it fluid and thoughtful:

1. Flexible grids: Use CSS Grid and Flexbox to build layouts that flow naturally.

2. Responsive images: Serve the right size to the right device with modern markup.

3. Media queries: Adjust components at meaningful breakpoints, not just device widths.

4. Fluid typography: Scale type with viewport-based techniques for balanced reading.

5. Touch targets: Size and space interactive elements for thumbs, not just cursors.

Test early and often. Reality beats assumptions every time.

How to Display Responsive Design Skills on Your Resume