Profile: A Real Nice Lady
What happens when you get a bunch of female creatives together?
All photos courtesy of A Real Nice Lady
They thrive, that’s what. Read on to learn how A Real Nice Lady came to be– creative project, business resource, and all around campaign for powerhouse women.
How did A Real Nice Lady come to be?
In mid-2019, the five of us were all finding opportunities to work together on various creative projects. A few of us were leaving our full-time jobs for freelance, so that allowed for more work and play together. We adopted the term “a real nice lady” for people we encountered in the creative industry who we felt we could be ourselves around- people who wouldn’t judge the weird ideas or covet the good ideas. It was important to us that we continued to find “real nice ladies” because we had all experienced the opposite of that in previous creative settings.
Throughout 2019 and into early 2020, we continued to stumble upon women in the creative industry who, like us, wanted to collaborate with and support other women. This allowed us to dream of a platform where we could feature these kickass women and freely collaborate with them on the kind of work we wanted to create. It’s fun looking back on the path that brought us to our launch in March 2020, because we’re getting to create a community that we all wanted but could never quite find.
Do you have a mission statement for the project?
Our mission has changed and evolved since launching in March, but one thing has stayed the same: A Real Nice Lady is a platform for highlighting ladies and lady-identifying people in their personal and professional endeavors.
Photo by Travis Carroll
Tell me a bit about the ladies behind A Real Nice Lady!
We are five independent creative freelancers with experience in the commercial industry. We each have our “roles” on the crew, but as freelancers, we have a lot of overlap in our skill sets– so we don’t stick to those roles all the time.
Are there any particular women that inspired you to start this project?
We’ve all come up in the creative industry seeing how difficult it is to be a woman in the creative industry– but we’ve all had that one female mentor or supervisor who gave us the chance, pushed us to take the risks, or even led by example. These women are the ones who inspired the “real nice lady” mindset.
What is your process for finding and interviewing candidates?
In the least creepy way possible, we spend a lot of time talking about the amazing women in Kansas City. Usually it starts with a personal interaction or a recommendation before we reach out to gauge interest in being featured. The interviews all start with the same general questions over email but we’ll go another one or two rounds to dig deeper into their career paths or personal interests. We want them to walk away feeling like they’ve talked about what they truly care about (whether it’s personal roller rink playlists or the state of politics in Kansas City), and we want our audience to feel like they had a great conversation with them.
Can you tell me a bit about the naming/branding process for this project? I've been so impressed by how quickly it's taken off, and how recognizably cohesive the portrait series is.
The exciting thing (for us) about A Real Nice Lady is that we can make it whatever we want it to be, and that’s really how the brand and style came to be. The logos, color palette, and website design were developed in a matter of weeks with only an ideal launch date as the deadline. From there, we’ve continued to work on what gets us excited and what we want to see out in the world. Our consistency comes from a place of always wanting to make cool work and always allowing that to change.
How do you make each portrait unique to each woman's personality/career?
Once we finish the interview, we start the creative development process for the photo shoot. We reach out to the woman to ask about favorite outfits, favorite colors, what inspires them, etc. and we meet internally to discuss any cool concepts that might be relevant. We like to try out a new creative style or technique with each lady so that allows us to experiment and play while featuring a unique personality in front of the camera.
How do you make your portrait subjects feel comfortable in front of the camera?
We ask them to bring their favorite outfits and we put on their favorite songs so they can be in a headspace that makes them feel comfortable and confident. Plus, our crew is so comfortable with each other that we don’t really hide our personalities when a new lady comes in. We talk about our anxieties, we tell corny jokes, we are our authentic selves, and (ideally) that makes our featured women feel comfortable.
How has the pandemic changed your process? Are you still able to pull off shoots right now?
The pandemic slowed us down for a short period of time because the emotional intensity of what’s going on in the world can be hard to deal with and candidly, it messed with our creativity and inspiration. We launched this whole thing March 1 and immediately had to pivot. Once we got to a place where we felt comfortable, we started coming back into the studio and creating again. We’ve formed our quarantine pod and we keep it very tight because we realized how much we each need to be playing and creating in person. Luckily, our interview process has always been online, so that wasn’t hard to transition– but the photo shoot process has been an adjustment. We developed COVID protocols to ensure we could continue to bring women into the studio for special portraits, and we’ve learned how to make our subjects comfortable while all masked up.
Any favorite memories from photo shoots/interviews so far?
Without sounding too cheesy, the favorite parts have been walking away from each photoshoot/interview with a new friend. We truly want to make a community out of this and every time we get to “invite” a new lady into our community, it really gives us the warm fuzzies.
Will this project stay locally based (i.e. only covering women in the KC metro), or do you think you'll ever expand it nationwide?
We’re definitely staying local for now. There are so many inspiring women in our city, we can’t imagine we would ever run short on ladies to feature.
Who would be your dream interviewee?
The first female president of the United States.
We’re really hoping to get some political candidates in the studio before the upcoming election, so anyone in local politics is our current dream goal.
What do you hope to accomplish with this project over the next year? And beyond?
A Real Nice Lady is a project where we get to feature amazing women in Kansas City and create the kind of designs, photos, interviews, etc. that really makes us happy. Getting to do all of this and still enjoy it day after day is always the goal. Outside of our own interests, we want to grow our community so we can attract more nice ladies and eventually host in-person events. We have lots of ideas, and finding a way to make it all happen during a global pandemic feels like an accomplishment in itself.
