[Wasted Talent Series] I Wrote My Résumé in the Unown Alphabet

Origin and Introduction

I said this was a résumé written in the Unown alphabet, yet the hero image features Dragonair???

Because Dragonair is adorable. (Hands on hips.)

Why Did I Suddenly Start the Wasted Talent Series?

Because... I really enjoy wasting talent. (Laughs.)

For as long as I can remember, I have known that I am fascinated by collecting all kinds of skills.

I do not care whether those skills are useful, whether I will ever get to use all of them, or how much they might help my career in the future.

I am simply driven by curiosity and the urge to collect, and I enjoy the happiness that comes from learning something new.

So when Frieren explained that she collected magic because it interested her, I completely understood that feeling XD.

Later, she did say that she enjoyed being praised by other people (laughs), so that part was a little different.

Still, these skills eventually found their way into unexpected places—usually nowhere especially proper, and sometimes somewhere downright absurd.

When I thought about it, each small skill felt too short to support one or two full articles on its own.

So I decided to present them through individual incidents instead, and that became the Wasted Talent Series.

Put simply, the Wasted Talent Series is a little grimoire in which I use the small skills I have learned to complete tasks that are not very important. (Huh? Is that really the explanation? XD.)

What Is Unown?

Unown are Pokémon shaped like written characters. They are mysterious beings in the Pokémon world and are usually found only in particular places, such as ruins.

Unown can sense human hearts and turn thoughts into reality. They first appeared in Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver, and also feature in Pokémon 3: The Movie.

Unown have 26 forms based on the English alphabet, plus question-mark and exclamation-mark forms, and every one looks different.

Because Unown resemble letters, Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver—and their later remakes, Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver—also use them in puzzles.

Why Write a Résumé in Unown in the First Place?

This story began one day when my good friend D suddenly started using animated Unown stickers in our group chat.

After some casual chatting, some strange wire must have crossed in my brain, because I said, ‘Why don’t we write our résumés in Unown?’

I also happened to need an updated résumé. To me, this was merely creating another language version of it! (What even is that logic? XD.)

So I took the idea extremely seriously. Once I started, I did not stop until I had changed the entire English résumé.

To match the Pokémon world of Unown, I also replaced some of the original colors with background colors from the games’ maps.

Once it was finished, all I could think was, ‘I genuinely have no idea where I could submit this résumé XD.’ Maybe it would earn bonus points at GAME FREAK? XDDD.

To see what the original résumé looked like, refer to my other article, How to Write Strong Chinese and English Résumés. It includes an early version of my English résumé, so you can compare the original design XD.

The résumé I currently use for job applications differs slightly in content, but the overall layout is much the same.

While modifying the résumé, I used several uncommon but very useful PowerPoint techniques, so I wanted to share them through this project.

After all, this is ultimately an introduction to small skills—not an article whose real subject is Pokémon and Unown XDDDD.

Choosing Software for the Résumé

In general, when I need to design many graphics with relatively little text, I choose Illustrator.

For a portfolio with more text layout or more pages, I use InDesign.

A typical résumé, however, should be concise and is mostly made of geometric shapes. It does not require overly complex graphic design, so PowerPoint is enough.

Why not use Word?

The main reason is that Word handles formatting and text flow rather rigidly. If you try to build the layout with text boxes, one small change can affect everything and quickly throw the whole page into chaos.

For that reason, I generally do not recommend Word when the work has substantial layout needs.

Of course, if your résumé is purely textual and you do not plan to do anything this flamboyant, Word is still a perfectly good choice.

For reference, this article uses the Microsoft 365 version of Office.

Downloading and Installing an Unown Font

If you want to replace all the English letters in a résumé with Unown, you may wonder: ‘Do I have to save all 26 Unown letters as separate images and replace every letter in the original résumé one by one?’

Wow, that would be exhausting. How many letters are in a résumé? How long would this take?

And remember, this is purely for fun—not a résumé you can formally submit XD.

Do not worry. This is when you should remember: ‘If I want to make something, someone has probably made it already.’

Searching Google for an Unown Font

We are certainly not the first people who want to write with Unown, and we will not be the last.

With that in mind, someone must have turned the Unown alphabet into a usable font file.

I usually start with searches such as ‘Unown font,’ pairing ‘Unown’ with ‘font,’ or adding common font-file extensions such as ‘.ttf’ or ‘.otf.’

The article linked below explains the differences among font-file formats in considerable detail and is worth reading.

[Three Common Font Types] Differences Between TTF, OTF, and TTC

If you do not feel like investigating, simply remember that .ttf and .otf are both common font formats.

As a rough tendency, carefully made English-language font resources are often found on European or American sites, while Chinese-language fonts are more often found on Asian sites.

Basically, choose a font file that looks acceptable to you and download it.

A Few Notes About Font Files

Font design takes a great deal of time, so when using a free font, pay close attention to the source’s rules about permitted use.

Some fonts prohibit commercial use, while others are completely open.

Unown fonts are especially awkward because the original character designs come from The Pokémon Company, so this type of font cannot be considered entirely original.

Downloading one for occasional personal entertainment may be acceptable, but be extremely careful before using it commercially or in public to avoid infringement.

For that reason, this article does not disclose the site I used and does not provide the font file to readers.

Installing the Font File

Whether the downloaded file is .otf or .ttf, it will generally look something like the example below.

My computer was still running Windows 10 when I installed the font, so the following steps use Windows 10.

First open the system Settings. You can usually find it as a small gear icon on the left side of the Start menu.

In Settings, open Personalization and select Fonts.

After opening the Fonts screen, drag the font file you downloaded into the area circled below to begin installation.

Once installed, the font will appear in different applications and can be used directly.

Changing and adjusting the font works just like any other font in PowerPoint, so I will not cover those basics here.

One thing does require attention: Unown cover only the 26 English letters, an exclamation mark, and a question mark, while an English résumé also contains periods, commas, semicolons, and various numbers.

For those remaining characters, I chose a font that does not look too out of place among the Unown: Aptos Black.

You can, of course, pair the Unown font with any other typeface you think works better.

Filling a Layout with a Pattern

Sharp-eyed readers may notice that several large color blocks in this Unown-filled résumé use background graphics from Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver.

The block at the top uses a floor pattern from the ruins, while the pale-brown dots on the left use the background from a stone-tablet puzzle.

I adjusted the color and blur of both so the text would remain readable XDDD. This thing still has to function as a résumé, after all!

If you want to fill an area with a special pattern like this, the games offer plenty of source material—enough to produce résumés in many different styles.

Suppose we choose the pattern below to fill a large color block.

Incidentally, this is tall grass from Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. When the player character steps into it, a wild Pokémon may appear at random.

If we insert this pattern directly into PowerPoint, its dimensions clearly do not match the area we want to fill.

If we simply resize it with the mouse, the pattern becomes distorted as it scales.

Clearly, that is not the result we want.

What we want is to fill the required area while preserving the pattern’s original size and proportions.

This is where PowerPoint’s picture-fill options come in.

First, choose Insert → Shapes in PowerPoint, select the shape you want to fill, and draw it with the mouse.

Next, right-click the shape and choose Format Shape. The formatting pane will appear on the right.

Under Fill & Line, choose Picture or texture fill. Under Picture source, select Insert and choose the pattern you want to use.

At first, the inserted picture looks just as distorted as it did when resized with the mouse—but here comes the important part!

Select Tile picture as texture, and the pattern will repeat to fill the shape exactly as intended.

Extracting Part of an Image with Merge Shapes

In the personal-information column on the left side of this redesigned résumé, I wanted a stronger Pokémon-world feel, so I replaced the icons from my regular résumé with Pokémon Gym Badges.

Finding images of Pokémon Gym Badges is not difficult. Here is a collection I found online.

It helpfully gathers badges from several generations into one image and even includes a smaller icon version.

But that is not actually what we need! We need each badge as an individual image!

On the bright side, the background has already been removed. If it had not, we might need an entirely separate article on removing backgrounds in different applications.

There are many ways to separate an individual badge from the larger image.

For example, we could select and cut each one in Paint, then save each badge as a separate file.

We could also use Picture Format → Crop in PowerPoint.

Here, however, I want to use a less common method: Merge Shapes.

Suppose we want the Vermilion Gym’s Thunder Badge from Generation I—the sun-shaped badge in the first row, third from the left.

Using the shape-insertion method described earlier, draw a square matching the area you want to extract, as shown below.

Move the square over the badge. Then hold Shift and select the source image first, followed by the square you just drew.

Selection order matters. If you select the objects in the wrong order, you will not extract the desired image correctly.

With both objects selected, open the Shape Format tab, choose Merge Shapes, and select Intersect.

After extraction, the large source image is reduced to the small selected portion. Unlike ordinary cropping, the rest of the original image is not retained.

This approach also avoids moving the image into another application, where cropping might change its transparency or resolution.

In my view, Merge Shapes is a relatively fast and precise way to extract a graphic in PowerPoint.

By drawing same-sized squares over one source image, you can control the size and range of each extracted graphic without entering crop values one by one.

Using Alignment to Speed Up Layout

PowerPoint’s advantage over Word is its free-form layout—but that is also its greatest inconvenience.

Word has many grid-like constraints, so alignment is easy: you can use Enter, Tab, or spaces to adjust the distance between pieces of text.

In PowerPoint, every paragraph can sit in its own text box. Making all those boxes line up with one another or with a particular object can become extremely troublesome.

You might say, ‘I can just use Ctrl plus the arrow keys and align everything by eye!’

Of course you can, but that approach creates two potential problems.

Visual alignment takes a great deal of time, and you have to zoom in so far that you lose sight of how the overall composition feels.

Instead of obsessing over tiny details, we should care more about whether the whole page feels comfortable to the person receiving the résumé.

So I want to introduce a faster alignment method.

Suppose we want to align the three text boxes containing rows of Unown sentences below. Hold Shift and select all three boxes.

Once the objects are selected, open the Shape Format tab and find the Align tool.

Alignment always needs a reference.

You can choose Align Selected Objects. In this example, one of the three selected objects becomes the reference for the others.

If you choose Align to Slide instead, the entire slide becomes the reference. This is useful when you want an object perfectly centered on the slide or flush with one edge.

Because we want the three text boxes to line up with one another, choose Align Selected Objects.

The Align menu offers many options. Try them to see which one produces the result you actually want.

Here, we specifically want the beginnings of all three text boxes to line up, so choose Align Left.

Align Right would also produce a consistent edge.

As the image shows, all three text boxes now share the same left edge. No matter how far you zoom in, they remain properly aligned.

You can then adjust the group as a whole and place the three text boxes exactly where you want them.

If you care less about the relationship among objects and more about an object’s absolute position, you can adjust that position directly in the Format Shape pane.

The image below simply records where to set an absolute position; I will not go into further detail here.

Conclusion

Writing a résumé in the Unown alphabet may sound absurd, confusing, and impossible to use anywhere.

But as you have probably noticed, the real point of this article is to introduce several small PowerPoint techniques that make work easier.

I think a skill or software feature reveals its value only when it is used in a concrete situation.

A tool-manual tour of what every tab can do would inevitably be less interesting. That is why the Wasted Talent Series exists.

After learning so many skills, would it not be a shame never to use them one by one? XD

Besides, different skills can collide and create unexpected sparks—and that is part of what I look forward to most!

See you in the next Wasted Talent article. (Waves.)