Designer Cover Letter Examples & Templates

To write a catchy graphic and web design cover letter, reel the reader in with your interest in the position the qualifications you bring to the table and keywords from the job description. 

Use the description as a guide and research the company to write a thorough cover letter. Give each paragraph a purpose for a smoother writing process, and use strong action verbs for punchier sentences. Keep the graphic and web design cover letter to one page, including the business format header, salutation and closing. 

Build your letter in our Cover Letter Generator, which automatically formats your layouts and provides editable content suggestions according to your industry and career stage.

Good candidates will have a balance of hard skills, which are job-specific abilities, and soft skills are about how you work, and interpersonal skills, which tell an employer how you work with others. 

Hard skills

• Responsive web design
• User experience (UX) design
• User interface (UI) design
• Typography
• Color theory
• Image optimization

Soft skills

• Leadership and delegation
• Conflict resolution 
• Negotiation
• Public speaking
• Creativity and innovation
• Attention to detail

Interpersonal skills

• Client management
• Customer service
• Understanding of user needs
• Collaboration
• Teamwork

Yes, but keep it simple. Creative industries have a leeway to include more design elements than other, more conservative industries like finance or medicine. Yet, keep it simple by using color, commonly used resume icons and other small elements. Let your qualifications and portfolio speak for you.

• Start with a compelling paragraph introducing yourself and why you’re interested in the position.
• Use the body paragraph to present your qualifications through storytelling. Choose an achievement as an example that highlights your skills and explains how it was achieved.
• Close with a thank you and a call to action for further consideration.

The minimum qualifications for graphic and web designers are a bachelor’s degree and a portfolio. If you have no work experience, add your student work and anything you’ve done for volunteer opportunities, internships and so on. 

Certifications also present your skills, show your expertise and set you apart: 

• Certified Web Designer (CWD)
• Certified Graphic Designer (CGD)
• Adobe Certified Expert (ACE)
• Google Analytics Certification
• HubSpot Design Certification

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these are the median salaries for occupations in graphic and web design: 

• Graphic designers: $58,910 per year
• Desktop publishers: $$51,290 per year
• Web developers: $92,750 per year

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 3% growth for this graphic design from 2022-2032. Meanwhile, the web developers and digital designers industry is projected to have 16% growth for the decade. The nationwide all occupation average is 4%.

The ideal cover letter format is a business letter format. This means using a header with your

• Include a header with your information. You can use the same as your resume header.
• Use 1-inch margins and the same professional font as your resume or CV
• Add a salutation using the name of the hiring manager or, worst case scenario, address the department you’re applying for. 
• Keep the signoff simple by using: “Best regards,” “Regards,” “Respectfully,” or “Sincerely.”