Top 12 Freelance Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's crowded creative market, a freelance designer’s resume needs bite, clarity, and a spark of invention. Show your hybrid strength: technical control with a playful, problem-solving mind. Put your sharpest skills up front to make hiring managers pause, then lean in.

Freelance Designer Skills

1. Photoshop
2. Illustrator
3. InDesign
4. Sketch
5. Figma
6. Adobe XD
7. HTML
8. Modern CSS
9. JavaScript
10. UI/UX Design
11. WordPress
12. After Effects

1. Photoshop

Photoshop is the go-to for pixel-perfect image editing, compositing, and rich visual treatments. Posters. Social assets. Retouching that doesn’t scream “retouched.” It’s the heavy brush and the fine scalpel.

Why It's Important

Clients expect crisp visuals. Photoshop delivers the polish, the nuance, and the fix-it-fast tools that make you look unflappable under deadlines.

How to Improve Photoshop Skills

Keep learning, keep tinkering. A few sharp moves:

1. Master the basics: Layers, masks, adjustment layers, blending modes. Nail the fundamentals so speed becomes instinct.

2. Practice regularly: Set micro-projects. Recreate ads you admire. Reverse-engineer effects you spot.

3. Shortcuts = speed: Build muscle memory for selections, brush tweaks, and transform commands.

4. Use quality assets: High-res images, clean brushes, and well-made textures lift everything.

5. Stay current: Explore new features like neural filters and smarter selections; fold them into your workflow.

6. Experiment: Push odd combinations. Try non-destructive workflows so you can play without fear.

It’s craft plus curiosity. The mix pays off.

How to Display Photoshop Skills on Your Resume

2. Illustrator

Illustrator handles vector graphics—scalable logos, icons, and illustration work that stay razor-sharp from favicon to billboard.

Why It's Important

Precision matters. Brands live or die on consistency, and vectors guarantee clean lines, easy edits, and infinite scalability.

How to Improve Illustrator Skills

1. Own the Pen Tool: Bezier curves should feel like second nature.

2. Typography chops: Kerning, tracking, baseline grids, and variable fonts—treat type like design material, not decoration.

3. Color systems: Understand CMYK vs. RGB, spot colors, and color management so prints match screens as closely as possible.

4. Layers, masks, appearances: Build flexible files. Future you will thank you.

5. Real projects: Create icon sets, brand marks, and responsive logo systems; iterate fast, refine slower.

6. Explore plugins: Tools that accelerate path cleanup, vector halftones, or precise measurements can save hours.

7. Keep pace with updates: New vector tools and interoperability improvements arrive often—use them.

The result: cleaner curves, faster output, happier clients.

How to Display Illustrator Skills on Your Resume

3. InDesign

InDesign is built for long-form and layout-intensive work: brochures, magazines, catalogs, books, interactive PDFs. Typography control without wrestling.

Why It's Important

When a project needs complex structure, consistent styles, and airtight pre-press output, InDesign is the standard that keeps it all aligned.

How to Improve InDesign Skills

1. Shortcuts and styles: Paragraph, character, object, and nested styles turn chaos into a system.

2. Master pages and grids: Build layouts that scale beautifully across dozens of pages.

3. Preflight and packaging: Zero surprises at the printer. Embed, link, verify, hand off clean files.

4. Interactive PDFs: Buttons, links, and simple animations for digital docs when a website is overkill.

5. Use scripts and plugins: Automate repetitive tasks—tables, data merge, multi-size exports.

6. Stay updated: New text engines, better collaboration, smoother export options—use what speeds you up.

Layout work becomes calmer, faster, and far less error-prone.

How to Display InDesign Skills on Your Resume

4. Sketch

Sketch focuses on UI design and prototyping with a slick vector workflow and a healthy plugin ecosystem. Note: it’s macOS-only, so plan your toolchain accordingly.

Why It's Important

For many designers and teams, Sketch offers a clean, fast interface and strong component systems—great for shipping consistent interfaces.

How to Improve Sketch Skills

1. Components and styles: Build reusable systems—symbols, shared styles, and libraries keep designs unified.

2. Practice daily: Tackle quick UI challenges. Recreate patterns you like. Timebox to stay sharp.

3. Plugin power: Automate spacing, export, and naming. Trim the tedious parts.

4. Design tokens: Name colors, type scales, and spacing with purpose so teams can adopt them across platforms.

5. Prototype: Link screens, add transitions, and communicate flow without writing a line of code.

6. Watch releases: Collaboration improvements and handoff tooling evolve constantly.

Fewer clicks, tighter systems, better files.

How to Display Sketch Skills on Your Resume

5. Figma

Figma is cloud-first UI/UX design and prototyping with real-time collaboration. Commenting, version history, and component libraries—built in.

Why It's Important

Clients can review live. Teams can co-edit. Hand-off stays clean. It compresses feedback loops and cuts miscommunication.

How to Improve Figma Skills

• Auto layout and constraints: Build responsive components that flex without breaking.

• Variants and interactive components: Keep states (hover, active, disabled) tidy and reusable.

• Plugins: Speed up icon injection, content population, color auditing, and accessibility checks.

• Templates and libraries: Start with systems; maintain a shared library to prevent drift.

• Collaboration rituals: Use comments, branches, and version naming to keep work organized.

• Stay updated: New features land often; fold them into your process before habits harden.

Less rework. Faster consensus. Cleaner deliverables.

How to Display Figma Skills on Your Resume

6. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is a vector-based design and prototyping tool for web and mobile experiences. Note: as of late 2023–2025, XD is in maintenance mode and generally not offered to new customers. Many teams have shifted to Figma or platform-specific alternatives.

Why It's Important

If you work with legacy files or clients still on XD, proficiency helps you support and migrate projects without disruption.

How to Improve Adobe XD Skills

1. Know the essentials: Components, responsive resize, repeat grids, and prototyping flows.

2. Plugins and integrations: Use what’s available to automate exports and speed up asset management.

3. Migrate with care: When moving to other tools, map components and styles thoughtfully to preserve consistency.

4. UI/UX fundamentals: Patterns and principles transfer cleanly between tools—master the craft, not just the software.

5. Community tips: Seek workflows from designers maintaining XD projects; adopt what still saves time.

Support existing work now; plan for cross-tool fluency next.

How to Display Adobe XD Skills on Your Resume

7. HTML

HTML (the current, living standard) structures content for the web. Semantic tags, accessible markup, and clean document outlines are the backbone of a trustworthy site.

Why It's Important

Good structure improves SEO, accessibility, and maintainability. It’s the difference between a site that “works” and a site that lasts.

How to Improve HTML Skills

1. Semantics first: Use meaningful tags and landmarks. Screen readers—and search engines—notice.

2. Accessibility: ARIA where appropriate, labels paired with inputs, logical heading order.

3. Media and performance: Picture sources, responsive images, lazy loading, and tight alt text.

4. Forms that behave: Native validation, proper types, and clear errors—small touches, big impact.

5. APIs awareness: Web Components, Web Storage, and other browser features can simplify interfaces without heavy stacks.

6. Build projects: Ship small pages often. Iterate. Refactor.

Clean HTML is quiet power.

How to Display HTML Skills on Your Resume

8. Modern CSS

CSS has evolved far beyond “make it blue.” Grid, Flexbox, container queries, custom properties, and motion bring layouts to life—responsively and elegantly.

Why It's Important

Clients want fast, responsive sites that look refined on any screen. CSS is how you get there without bloated code or brittle hacks.

How to Improve CSS Skills

1. Layout mastery: Grid for structure, Flexbox for groups. Container queries for context-aware components.

2. Design systems: Use custom properties for color, spacing, and type scales. Theme with intent.

3. Responsive strategy: Mobile-first styles, fluid typography, and modern units like clamp(), min(), max().

4. Animations with purpose: Transitions and keyframes that guide, not distract. Respect reduced-motion preferences.

5. Structure your CSS: BEM, utility-first, or a hybrid—choose a methodology and stick to it.

6. Preprocessors and tooling: Sass or PostCSS can streamline larger projects.

7. Practice in the open: Recreate components and patterns; push them to sandboxes and refine.

Your CSS should feel sturdy, not fragile.

How to Display CSS Skills on Your Resume

9. JavaScript

JavaScript brings interfaces to life—state, interactivity, and logic layered onto solid HTML and CSS.

Why It's Important

Interactive experiences increase engagement and conversion. Done well, they feel effortless. Done poorly, they wobble. Mastery matters.

How to Improve JavaScript Skills

1. Core concepts: Scope, closures, prototypes, async/await, modules. Understand them deeply.

2. DOM savvy: Efficient querying, events, and state updates without jank.

3. Modern syntax: ES6+ features keep code readable and maintainable.

4. Framework awareness: Learn one deeply (React, Vue, or Svelte). Know when plain JS is better.

5. Patterns and architecture: Component-based thinking, separation of concerns, accessibility-first scripting.

6. Tooling: Browser DevTools, linting, formatting, and version control skills save days, not minutes.

7. Build small things: Widgets, carousels, filterable lists—ship, review, refactor.

Clarity over cleverness. Always.

How to Display JavaScript Skills on Your Resume

10. UI/UX Design

UI/UX is the craft of shaping how a product looks, behaves, and feels. It blends research, interaction design, visual systems, and a steady loop of testing and iteration.

Why It's Important

Better experiences convert. They also retain. Clients love results, and users reward clarity with trust.

How to Improve UI/UX Design Skills

1. Start with users: Interviews, surveys, and lightweight discovery. Define the problem before drawing boxes.

2. Information architecture: Map flows, prioritize content, reduce friction. Fewer dead ends, more momentum.

3. Visual hierarchy: Type scales, spacing systems, and contrast that guide the eye without shouting.

4. Responsive thinking: Design for small first, scale with intent. Test on real devices.

5. Usability testing: Quick tests beat guesswork. Watch where users stumble; fix that.

6. Accessibility: Color contrast, focus states, keyboard navigation. Build for everyone.

7. Design systems: Components, tokens, docs. Consistency isn’t boring—it’s humane.

8. Iterate ruthlessly: Feedback loops with clients and stakeholders keep you aligned and moving.

Make it obvious. Make it kind. Then make it beautiful.

How to Display UI/UX Design Skills on Your Resume

11. WordPress

WordPress is a flexible CMS that powers a massive slice of the web. With themes, plugins, and the block-based Site Editor, you can ship fast and tailor deep.

Why It's Important

Clients want control. WordPress gives them an editor they can use, and you get a platform that bends to brand needs without reinventing the wheel.

How to Improve WordPress Skills

1. Block themes and the Site Editor: Embrace modern theming and global styles for cleaner builds.

2. Performance: Caching, image optimization, and minimal plugins. Measure, then trim.

3. Security: Updates, backups, least-privilege access, and a reputable security plugin.

4. SEO basics: Structured data, readable URLs, lightweight markup, and a trusted SEO plugin.

5. Accessibility: Choose accessible themes, test with keyboards and screen readers, fix issues early.

6. Custom blocks and styling: Learn block patterns, theme.json, and thoughtful CSS for consistent design.

7. Page builders (when needed): Tools like Elementor can help—use judiciously to avoid bloat.

Stable, fast, and editable. That’s the sweet spot.

How to Display WordPress Skills on Your Resume

12. After Effects

After Effects handles motion graphics and visual effects. Title sequences, animated logos, microinteractions for product videos—the flair that moves.

Why It's Important

Motion communicates hierarchy and tone at a glance. Add it to your toolkit and you can pitch richer stories, not just static screens.

How to Improve After Effects Skills

1. Practice core concepts: Keyframes, easing, parenting, precomps. Build from fundamentals.

2. Stay current: Performance, 3D features, and export options keep improving—adopt what helps.

3. Scripts and plugins: Automate repetitive tasks, generate complex motion, and clean up timelines.

4. Optimize your system: Purge caches, manage previews, and plan disk usage for smoother playback.

5. Motion principles: Anticipation, follow-through, overshoot—classic animation rules still apply.

Make the pixels dance with purpose, not just panache.

How to Display After Effects Skills on Your Resume