Mónica is a Portuguese designer who loves nothing more than to deliver beautiful and functional websites tailored to her clients’ needs. She has been involved with design in one form or another since 1997 and has given up subdivisions in favor of simply considering herself a designer. Working with WordPress exclusively for designerblogs.com on the Genesis framework has allowed her to stretch her creative wings while learning something new every day.

A self-confessed geek, when she isn’t designing she can be found roleplaying, playing boardgames or reviewing videogames at www.rubberchickengames.com and she has a rather neglected blog at monicaguerraleiria.com.

Her presentation is “Between Glorified Computer Interface and Ultimate Narcissist: delivering what the client needs.”

When doing client work there is a fine line between what the client wants and what we, as designers, would like to deliver; balanced on that line is what the client truly needs, and achieving it takes more than talent – it takes self-restraint and great communication skills.

Every designer has, at some point, been faced with that client who has a need to micromanage every aspect of the design, who relentlessly attempts to relegate the designer to the same role one would a keyboard or a mouse. This is a talk about the design process, about the pitfalls that lie in bowing to the client’s wants instead of tirelessly seeking the answer to their needs, and about the other fine line in this equation – the one between subservience and ego.