For those of you that have experience working in retail/customer service jobs, I would imagine that you are rolling your eyes right now about the title of this post. When a business gets their fair share of unhappy and argumentative customers, employees want to give it right back to them, especially when whatever they are saying is wrong. Then the supervisor must remind them that the customer is always right, and the employee needs to flash that fake smile and treat them with the respect they might not deserve.

As creatives, we will deal with our own customers and their own opinions. This applies to really any type of artist/art major. From graphic designers making annual reports, to painters working on a commissioned portrait, we unfortunately have to listen to the customer’s feedback, which is “always right.”

But wait…does it always have to be unfortunate?

This week at my internship, I had finished working on a brochure for a client and everyone seemed to like it. But at the last round of approvals, the client wanted a totally different look, which meant giving the brochure a complete makeover. This wasn’t quite the reaction I wanted, but I took a deep breath and did what the client wanted.

It turns out that this makeover worked out in my favor. I explored some new color palettes and added some subtle drop shadows that surprisingly made the brochure ten times better. I learned some new tricks in InDesign that I can carry into this upcoming semester at Marywood.

So is the customer always right? No, but sometimes by keeping an open mind, their feedback can give us new ideas that make us better artists in the long run.