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CreateCVOnline

Creative · Single column · ATS 2/5

Photographer CV template

A hairline gallery frame around a centred, letterspaced document.

Creative templates spend their design budget where a studio reviewer will notice it, which is the opposite of what an automated screen rewards — a trade-off worth making deliberately. It is a single-column layout with a portrait, so it suits markets where a photo is expected and stays readable if you switch the photo off.

Live preview of the Photographer template, rendered at full page size with an example CV. The preview is the same code that generates your PDF.

The design

About the Photographer layout

Photographer frames the whole page in a hairline border, then centres a large portrait, your name in wide letterspaced type and every heading beneath it, so the document reads like a print hung in a gallery. Colour is kept almost entirely out of the design — the accent survives only in the rules and list marks — which means a black-and-white print loses nothing at all. Centred headings and the frame are what make it beautiful and also what make it unsuitable for applicant tracking systems, so keep it for clients, galleries and agents.

Who it’s for

The readers and situations this layout was drawn for.

  • Photographers, cinematographers and retouchers
  • Artists applying to galleries and residencies
  • Freelancers sending a CV straight to a client

Key features

What is actually different about this template on the page.

  • Inset hairline frame around the page
  • Large centred portrait
  • Wide letterspaced name
  • Centred tiny-caps section headings

ATS score 2/5 · Limited

How this layout behaves in an applicant tracking system

It scores 2 out of 5. This is a portfolio piece in document form: beautiful in an inbox, unreliable in an upload field, and it would be dishonest to describe it any other way.

Because there is only one text column, an extractor never has to decide which block to read first — the page has exactly one reading order and it is the one you can see.

A photograph is invisible to a parser and occasionally counts against you in US and UK screening. Turn it off for portal applications and keep it for the version you email directly.

Use this one where a person opens the file: a direct approach, a studio, an agent, a client, a networking introduction. For anything uploaded to a careers portal, build a second version from the ATS CV templates — the same content, a layout that survives extraction, and no need to write anything twice.

Parsing checklistATS score 2 out of 5
Reading order
Single flow
Headings
Real text
Tables
None
Images
Photo only, optional
Selectable text
Yes

Scores are our own assessment of how a parser handles the layout — never a guarantee about one specific employer’s system.

In practice

Three situations Photographer is the right answer to

Templates are chosen badly when they are chosen in the abstract. Here is what sending this one actually looks like.
Case 1

A portfolio submission

Sent alongside images or a link, to a reader who is already assessing your visual judgement. The CV is one more exhibit, and it should not be the weakest one in the set. A typical example: Photographers, cinematographers and retouchers.

Case 2

Craft on the page

Everything runs in one column, so a long list of projects and commissions keeps the sequence you chose — and the sequencing is part of the edit when the reader is a creative director.

Case 3

A portfolio-led creative approach

For photographers, art directors and stylists the portrait is a statement about how you frame an image, including one of yourself. Reviewers in these fields read that, and no screening system ever will. If the employer asks for a document without one, the photo toggle in the editor removes it and Photographer re-balances the header on its own.

Make it yours

Customising Photographer

The template sets the structure; everything inside it is yours. Colours, fonts, spacing, section order and paper size are all controls in the CV builder, and the preview updates as you change them — nothing is applied blind.

Accent colour

Photographer ships with #262626 as its accent. The accent is doing visible design work, so choose it deliberately: pull it from your portfolio site or your personal identity rather than accepting a default. One strong colour beats two competing ones on a page this expressive.

Fonts and heading style

A display or editorial face for headings over a quiet body face is the pairing this layout is drawn around. Let one voice lead — setting both at high contrast is what turns an art-directed CV into a noisy one. Heading case — uppercase, capitalised or as typed — is a separate switch, and it changes the character of the page more than most people expect.

Spacing and density

Font size, line height, section spacing and page margins are all sliders. On a single column they behave predictably: reduce section spacing first, margins second, and only then the type size — a CV set below 9.5pt starts to look like an attempt to hide its length.

Sections and order

Projects, awards and links carry more weight than a long employment history. If the work itself is your strongest argument, move projects above experience — it takes one drag in the editor. Every section can be renamed, reordered or hidden, and Pro adds custom sections for anything the standard set does not cover.

Photo

The portrait can be circular, rounded or square, and it can be switched off entirely — the header reflows rather than leaving a hole, so one CV serves both a market that expects a photograph and one that does not.

Paper size and export

Switch between A4 and US Letter and the document re-flows to the new page instead of being scaled into it. The exported PDF is rendered from the same component as the preview, so nothing shifts between the screen and the file.

Photographer: common questions

No, and it does not try to be: it scores 2 out of 5. The composition that makes it worth sending to a creative director is the same composition a parser strips. Keep it for direct approaches and build a single-column version for anything uploaded.

Alternatives

Related templates

Other layouts worth comparing before you commit — the closest matches from Creative first, then designs with a similar ATS score from other families.

Art Director

creative · one column

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Content Creator

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Creative Designer

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Creative Professional

creative · one column

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Editorial

creative · two columns

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Graphic Designer

creative · one column

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Start your CV with Photographer

Open it with the example content already in place, replace it with your own, and download a PDF when it reads the way you want. Switching to another template later keeps every word you have written.

Free to start. A Pro or Lifetime plan unlocks this design and every other one.