When an agency is called Nice People, it stands to reason they’d be intent on putting good out into the world through their work.
Founded by CEO and creative director Amber Asay, Nice People has done just that since 2017, most recently tackling a rebrand for GIFTED, a business owned and operated by survivors of gender-based violence. As a project out of the survivor-led organization FreeFrom, GIFTED is a social enterprise where 100% of every purchase helps survivors build wealth, safety, and power through their handcrafted products. Every GIFTED employee, from the entrepreneur whose products they sell to the backroom staff, is a survivor of gender-based violence.
The GIFTED rebrand, developed by Nice People, was the winner of our 2025 Dieline Awards Design for Good Award, as Asay and her team masterfully created narrative and visual cohesion between the various product lines sold by the unique sellers on the platform. Pairing soft pastels with bold type, the new brand system strikes the perfect tone of gentle yet loud. To celebrate their big win, we chatted with Asay about the project, unpacking their intimate collaboration with the GIFTED team and the joy of working with mission-led organizations.
What was the brief GIFTED came to you all with for this rebrand?
They had already been around for several years once they reached out to us. They come from a larger non-profit organization called FreeFrom. I was immediately drawn to their story and their message. They’re in LA, and I am, too, so there was a lot that made us want to work on this; we felt immediately aligned.
It was a similar story to many clients we work with, where they’d been around for a few years, got their footing, have a following, have an established business or brand, and are ready for their 2.0; they’re ready for an upgrade. GIFTED’s brand before us was very DIY-looking. They were using a simple Shopify theme, and each brand they sold had its own look. The brands that they sell are all survivor-led businesses, and each of them is a different entrepreneur, but they’re all sold under this one umbrella. It was a little confusing to start, so we came in and helped streamline everything. We said there’s a bigger story here that someone can tell, and there’s a bigger collective that could be made more obvious from the moment someone sees the site. Since their brand is all about community, supporting each other, and creating community outside of them, too, we thought this should feel like a bigger collective.
So our goal was to help not only bring that story out as clearly as possible about how they are all survivors of intimate partner violence, but then also to help the consumer understand what they’re purchasing and that it feels like it’s all coming from this one bigger brand.
What were the main considerations that went into this rebrand?
We leaned into the client and tried to understand them as best as possible. We wanted to understand what they were looking for, where they were coming from, what their story was supposed to look like, and how they talked about themselves. And then, at the same time, what do we look like? What is the brand supposed to look like with that story in mind?
A huge part of this process was hearing and learning about their stories. At first, it seemed like they were supporting survivors and these entrepreneurs, but really, the team, in and of itself, including all the behind-the-scenes staff and the people running the ship, are also survivors. They’re all coming together through GIFTED to break free from this idea of being even financially bound to a person. There’s such a thing as financial abuse, so for them to be able to break free from that and become entrepreneurs, supporting each other and creating this community, was really inspiring. It was also impactful for us to hear how they wanted GIFTED to be not just inspiring and thoughtful but to feel radical and trailblazing and really bold and loud. So we said,
“Okay, let’s be loud with this.”
There are so many layers to their brand. We talked about this idea of “radical love” and how gifting can be an act of radical love. There’s also the idea that self-care can lead to community care, and the products themselves are self-care products. There was a lot that came together in terms of storytelling with all those pieces at the beginning.
How did you then reflect that story into the visuals you created for GIFTED’s brand system?
We were thinking about being loud and proud and creating that type of activist feeling because behind GIFTED is this non-profit that’s very ambitious and very motivated. Yet, at the same time, they loved these soft pastels and feminine colors. So we were like, great, let’s do that too. It became both this feminine and masculine brand where it’s bold and loud, and there’s a bit of disruption there, but then at the same time, there’s a lot of heart and love and warmth with pink in the brand, too.
How did it feel working with a client that has such an important mission and knowing the brand you create has the potential to have a powerful social impact?
Projects like this are few and far between, so that’s what makes it so special. When I started Nice People, even the name itself, “Nice People,” showed this idea of wanting to create brands that are doing good. Even with your own internal compass as a designer, you have to ask yourself, “Am I using my design and skillset for good?” So it’s one of those really fulfilling moments where this is the whole reason why Nice People exists.
What I hope to continue doing with this agency is finding these kinds of clients and brands that are so committed to a much bigger mission and that it’s not all about corporate America and consumerism and spend, spend, spend. You can get sucked into that cycle of working with brands that want to be best and at the top of the chain. It’s nice and refreshing to work with brands like GIFTED, where it’s like, This is why we exist. This is what we’re doing here as a team: creating something that’s bigger than us and that’s going to impact more people than just us. We get to do something better than being a pretty package on the shelf of Sephora.
What aspect of this rebrand are you proudest of?
One impactful moment for me was at the end of the project. FreeFrom had been working on a documentary called Survivor Made, and they invited me to the premier. The team I had worked with was there, and I got to hear their stories in the documentary. People that I knew on the client side, and then hearing their stories and what they’d been through, I was in tears. You would never know what someone has gone through and all of those layers. It was that onion moment where the layers peeled back, and I got to know these women and their stories. It was so fun meeting them in person, and it was such a heartfelt close to the project. I hope they keep thriving. I hope that this brand helps continue to push their businesses forward so that they continue to get what they deserve.
How does it feel being recognized by DIELINE with the Design for Good Award for this work?
It felt incredible. Something that I’ve always admired about DIELINE is it feels like one of the most inclusive competitions in the design industry today. Hands down.
DIELINE also emphasizes doing design for good and design that’s going to be good for the earth, too. There’s so much more purposeful design behind DIELINE Awards, and it feels like DIELINE is always reminding everyone of that. I think that’s what’s nice and refreshing about DIELINE— it puts the focus on things that need to matter, that we’re maybe not always thinking about.
