A tiny Lego-like man drops from the flat blue sky and leaps among Manhattan skyscrapers like a hoops player who’s bouncier than a basketball.
He swims just out of reach of packs of orange piranhas with serious underbites, bright red lobsters with open claws and blinky-eyed sea turtles. On dry land again, he sails up in a hot air balloon past a towering list of web-design awards and publications, landing victoriously at… a contact page. Say what? Who is this caped crusader wearing huge, geeky glasses?
Victorious Web Designer
Listen up, all of you out there who are considering web design careers: This story concerns someone to emulate. Let’s call his fictional hero “Super Resume Man.” The stiff, Lego-like figure looks a bit like his human counterpart, Robby Leonardi, creator of one of the coolest online resumes ever.
Website visitors help Super Resume Man to dash, stroke and fly beyond danger by scrolling the page or pressing up-and-down keyboard buttons.
Leonardi has been receiving web design kudos since April 2013 when Britain’s Net Magazine named his website one of 10 best online portfolios of the year.
A graduate of New York’s Pratt Institute, the artist lives in the Big Apple and is a digital media designer for Fox News. Aside from interacting with his Super Mario game-style resume, visitors can explore Leonardi’s work portfolio, ranging from basic web pages to animations for TV.
Using Monsters to Deliver a Message
As Leonardi’s resume makes obvious, he is a fan of computer games and professional basketball. If he isn’t talking hoops on his Facebook page, he’s chatting about web design. And deep down, he’s still the boy who loved playing computer games.
Aside from his college and work training, Leonardi has spent long hours studying online tutorials to gain his strong understanding of front-end coding and graphic design. This is an important tip for all who want web design careers.
Leonardi has a playful sense of humor. For example, the schools of underwater monsters form pictographs explaining the designer’s technical skills. The piranhas line up in columns from “beginner” to “master” to quantify the designer’s familiarity with various kinds of graphic and web software.
Resume designers often use icon-oriented infographics to display skills. Leonardi’s display is a lesson in creating a major statement with minimal words, but avoiding confusing software acronyms to make it accessible to a broad audience. Colorful and easy to understand, the chart is reminiscient of how children display data in early elementary school. This is the rule of KISD (keep it simple, designers).
Other Simple Lessons to Learn
Although much complexity underlies Leonardi’s website, he keeps the user experience as easy as possible. There are only two directions to take as you open the site — one button leads to his portfolio; the other connects with the interactive website.
As the Speckyboy design magazine notes, when looking to hire a web designer, HR managers need to see basics as well as creativity. Even if you submit an interactive resume, you need to include a more conventional, downloadable curriculum vitae. This is what Leonardi does via a CV button on his portfolio page.
Woe to those who forget the printable resume. It allows an HR manager to keep your information on file for future job openings.
For more information about web design jobs, please contact Artisan Talent today.
