Onyx

Onyx solves a genuine dilemma. Plain single-column resumes are safe but visually flat, and a flat document is harder to scan quickly. Coloured templates add structure but introduce a judgement call: is this blue too casual for this employer? Onyx sidesteps the question by using a shaded sidebar instead of a coloured one. You get the visual separation that makes a document scannable, with no colour decision to get wrong.

This makes it the strongest default when you know nothing about the employer's culture. A shaded panel is legible as deliberate design in a creative agency and as clean professionalism in a bank. Very few visual choices work in both directions, and that range is Onyx's actual value.

Monochrome also survives contact with reality better than colour. Resumes get printed on office lasers, photocopied, forwarded as compressed PDFs, and viewed on uncalibrated monitors. A colour that is carefully chosen on your screen may render muddy or garish downstream. Greys degrade gracefully — the hierarchy you designed still reads after three generations of photocopying.

The header stays fixed at the top, which keeps the layout in the pattern recruiters scan fastest: name and current title top-left, then down the page. Onyx does not offer the header repositioning that Flux does, and that is a reasonable trade — the top header is the right choice for corporate applications almost every time.

Use two-column mode with the shaded sidebar for skills, tools, and certifications. Use single-column mode when your history is the story and you want nothing competing with it.