by Thayne Madrid

There’s
something about Jessica. Perhaps it’s her disarming directness wrapped
in an aura of relaxed energy. A savvy business woman, yes. A talented
designer and entrepreneur, yes. Most of all, a woman with a mission.

Jessica Bernert is the owner and inspiration
behind Pail Design, a successful event graphics design business located
in Portland. She grew up in a large family in Canby, attended NW
College of Art in Washington state and finished at Portland State
University, a school that she describes as a place to get your thing
done without social distractions.

She progressed from designing wedding
invitations for friends to creating major event graphics for such
happenings as the Rose Festival. And now she’s taking the next step of
merging with mODproductions, an event planning company, to create what
may be the Northwest’s first integrated event marketing company.

I had the opportunity to interview Jessica
recently. We met up at local Chinese restaurant Hong 88; in Chinese,
eighty-eight is pronounced at fat and means prosperity, which I would
say is definitely in Jessica’s future.

Here’s what Jessica had to say:

How long have you been a designer?

Officially? About six years. Realistically,
since I started designing graphic notebook covers during grade school
for my friends in trade for candy.

What the best thing about the work you do?

The feeling of accomplishment when a design you
create fulfills its objective…in other words, when it really works,
and doesn’t just fulfill a pretty (decorative) purpose.

If you could change anything about the work you do what would it be?

Oh, probably have others to do the stuff I don’t like to do like admin/pre-press, etcetera.

What advice would you give someone starting out here in Portland?

Network and more networking! People do business
with people they like, and typically, your best work comes out of doing
work for the types of clients you really connect with. It’s better to
meet people rather than counting on your Web site. It’s still about
people. We design for people so it makes sense that it starts that way.

What are you currently working on?

My
white board? (She says with a smile.) A few branding campaigns for the
Rose Festival Auction, an Internet Strategy Forum Executive Summit, a
luxury resort on the coast and of course internal stuff for
mODproductions, LLC, the new company I am merging with.

Whose work do you admire here in town?

When I see good design, I admire it, but I don’t
always place a name with it. I really admire Stefan Sagmeister’s
approach and honesty to design and business, and I typically admire the
way people do business rather their style of design.

What local business or business person do you admire?

People who teach not particularly any one person
because it’s nice when busy people take time to teach what they have
learned in business. So, I admire my business mentors, who usually end
up being lifelong friends. It’s important to have people in your life
who are happy to see you succeed and support you.

If you were not doing this job what kind of work would you be doing?

Is this a trick question? … Fishing? … Nah,
when people ask me what I do, I say, I play with fonts and colors. It’s
true and I love that. I can’t imagine doing any other kind of work.

How long have been in business?

Three years.

Is this your first business?

Yes.

Why did you decide to start this business?

I saw many events trying to throw things
together most often less than successfully and I saw a need for the
industry. I wanted to change the way events are communicated. Large
events are like mini-businesses; they all need a sense of identity,
way-finding, enticement and smart visual communication to enhance the
attendees’ experience and meet with the objectives of the why’ of the
event in the first place. Since I have a love of architecture and
environmental graphic design, event graphic design gives me a
playground to work with all those elements and satisfies a business
need.

What was the smartest thing you’ve done for your business?

The smartest thing just happened recently, which
was deciding to merge my skills with another complimentary company in
the event industry. The fit was always there, and when we realized it,
merging was the smartest thing to do. I still can’t believe we did not
see it earlier, but the experience of doing it solo for a few years is
irreplaceable.

In hindsight, what would you have done differently?

More marketing, less advertising.

What is the biggest reward to owning your own business?

That my hard work is directly correlated to the success of my business.

What have you learned that you are most surprised by?

Not
to let one client or project run your business. You have to manage and
balance your projects, especially if your business is based on having
multiple client projects. I learned that the hard way once.

What advice would you give to someone starting a small business?

If it’s a competitive field, and everyone has a
designer friend, sales are important. If you can’t sell, or don’t have
a good sales person, it can be rough.

Niche marketing and niche design is smart as
well. Having a company doesn’t mean you should say you can do it all. I
specialize in event graphics, and event marketing. It started with
invitations and grew from there.

How did you finance your business?

Low overhead.

What is your favorite thing about Portland?

The water. Being able to throw the kayak in the
middle of the river during lunch, while all the traffic rushes by
overhead on the bridges and yet feeling completely in solitude.

What do you think Portland is lacking?

Simply women’s networking groups, without fees, speakers or too much commitment, like www.womenssoiree.com.

What are some of your long term goals?

Grow mODproductions, LLC, and do more event-based business outside of PDX like Seattle.

For more information about Jessica and mODproductions LLC, visit www.modprod.com.

  About the author

Thayne Madrid is a writer, designer and creative director. He began
writing as a columnist for the Marina Mail in Marina del Rey,
California in the late 70’s, while running his own design firm. Art,
Love, Time and Money, Inc. Later, he joined Dentsu in Japan writing for
Sony, the one and only. Japan turned into all of SE Asia and the Middle
East. Twenty years later he has returned to his hometown, Portland, to
relax and write. Well, maybe not to relax too much. You can reach
Thayne at thaynemarid@comcast.net.