Your Resume's Most Important Design Elements

The most important design elements for a resume?

• Use a mix of bold type, italics, bold italics, varying font sizes, small caps, and upper-case lettering for emphasis and to control the reader’s eye — but don’t go overboard with typographic variations.
• Type should be between 10 and 12 point. 11-point type is ideal.
• Balance the material on your page.
• Allow sufficient white space with margins of .75” to 1”. Note that Microsoft Word’s default margins of 1.25” are generally wider than needed.
• Bulleted lists are extremely reader-friendly.
• Be consistent with headings so the eye can follow a pattern.
• Do not use justified text blocks. Type should be flush left with occasional centering.
• Do NOT italicize your entire resume or large blocks of type as italics are hard on the eye.
• Don’t use more than two fonts.
• Underlining tends to add clutter.