Adii: A Freelancer Designer and Strategist

Earlier this week I was contacted by Adriaan Pienaar (Adii) and asked if I would be willing to write a review of his blog and design services. This blog is still pretty new and it’s something I had yet to do here on Average Joe Blogger, so I was initially caught off guard. It’s not that I have any reservations about paid reviews, in fact I had planned on offering them at some point in the future. I just wasn’t expecting it to be now. Anyway, there’s no time like the present so let’s get on with the review, shall we?

Disclaimer: This is a paid review for Adriaan Pienaar. Adii is also a paid advertiser and you can see his banner ad to the right.

Who is Adii?

Adriaan Pienaar (a.k.a. Adii (pronounced “ay-dee”)) is a freelance WordPress designer and Web 2.0 strategist (an Adii Freelancer) who calls Cape Town, South Africa home. According to Adii’s about page he specializes in designing pretty websites with strategic aims and has been freelancing since February 2007 to help pay the bills. Here’s his words:

I’ve been freelancing, since February 2007 and it’s not because I have a phobia for commitment - it’s been a way of paying the bills. I’m available for freelance work most of the time, but I try not to take on too many projects at once…

I specialize in designing pretty websites, with strategic aims and I’m a whole lot more comfortable designing blogs. I use Wordpress for 90% of my personal and client projects, although I have recently ventured into doing just designing and CSS / XHTML work on request.

His Blog

At first glance you can tell that Adii has embraced the Web 2.0 style of design, and he does a good job at that. The design of his site is clean, bold, well laid out and full of bright colors. Overall I really like the design and layout of his site but there are a few things I would like to see him changes. But we’ll get to that in a little bit.

As far as content goes, Adii mainly writes about WordPress, marketing, business strategy and of course web and blog design. His strong suit is definitely toward WordPress and design. Which is predictable considering he probably spends a good deal of his freelance time designing and developing themes for WordPress.

Apart from the above mentioned topics, Adii also has a very interesting series of Mini Interviews. These mini interviews are basically short (7 questions seems to be key number), virtual interviews with some big and well known names around the blogsphere. Adii has currently conducted 44 mini interviews and they’re all a good read for anyone who wants a quick look inside the world these people. Here are a few of my favorites.

Nate Whitehill on Online Business and Blogging
Do you know New Media? Chris Garrett does…
Lorelle on Wordpress

Freelance Design Services

Adii specializes in blog and concept design, XHTML / CSS coding, Wordpress coding and any basic PHP programming, but is available for “any and all freelance work”. Adii seems to have a true talent especially for designing and coding WordPress themes. In fact you may have already seen some of his work as he just recently redesigned Chris Garrett’s blog. You can see more of Adii’s work on his portfolio page.

In addition to custom commissioned site design, Adii also has several pre-built designs for sale. Each of these designs can be purchased as a fully coded Wordpress template, simply a XHTML / CSS template or as a layered Photoshop PSD. Here are two of my favorite.

Click to enlarge

Areas For Improvement

Now that we’ve discussed who Adii is and what he does, it’s time for a little constructive criticism. Here are a few things I would like to see Adii change.

Separate or Get Rid of the Personal Stuff - While having the personal stuff on his does give a glimpse of who Adii the person is, I think it also takes away from the professionalism a bit. The first thing I would suggest is to get rid of the personal photos. His fiance seems like a lovely person and young love is exciting and all, but it doesn’t belong on a professional site. If the photos are a must, then keep it to the about page.

Get the Professional Up Front - The blog portion of the site is nice and I’m sure does a great job of attracting visitors. However, I wonder if it might be better served as a sub section (/blog/) instead of at the root of the site. By moving the blog portion it will allow him to focus more on the professional side. Maybe use the index or root (home page) of the site to promote the paid services. After all, it is what’s paying the bills.

Longer Interviews - The Mini Interviews are a great feature of Adii’s blog but I find myself wanting to know more after reading them. Maybe adding a few more questions would make the seem a little more fulfilling while still keeping them short.

Tags: Paid Review, Web 2.0, Web Designer, WordPress Design, WordPress Themes