The Art Degree Pays Off: Meet Matt Mirpourian of Pacific North Press

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Matt Mirpourian got his first taste of screen printing after art school in his friend’s print studio - a makeshift backyard shed, as barebones as you can imagine, but enough to make quality prints that ultimately changed the direction of his life. Making his first print in that little shed was like experiencing magic. To witness his art come to life with such bold, accurate color was a moment of inspiration that sticks with him to this day. 

From then on, Matt started to help his friends with their screen printing work, and later, when they lost interest, he ended up buying some of their equipment and setting up his own shop in Damascus, OR. His graphic designer friends from art school started sending him work from the jobs they obtained after school, feeding him a lot of work from big clients who loved the final product Matt generated in his small shop. Those early days set him on a trajectory that has led to over a decade of experience in the print industry and being a co-owner of Pacific North Press, one of the best print shops in Portland. 

Now, Pacific North Press occupies around 8,000 square feet of industrial space in inner NE Portland. Matt gets to work with his beloved co-owners while employing 19 Portlanders in a thriving, growing business that directly supports the local community with quality, affordable, and sustainable works of print beauty. 

PNP has printed a huge variety of art over the years, and that’s what has really sharpened their skills and made the process more enjoyable. Their printers get joy from engaging in the process, but they also get great satisfaction from helping their customers experience that magical moment of translating mediums -- seeing their art transformed from the digital or conceptual realm into the physical realm. At the volume of work they do now, sometimes printing can feel routine, but still, when the team sees a good, well-developed, well-designed print, Matt says they all stand around together and admire it. 

The power of screen printing is the clear, bold, accurate colorwork that can be achieved with the spot color process, which uses solid, pre-mixed ink colors that are layered onto a surface to produce vibrant, consistent color. The color reproduction in spot color is untouchable by the digital printing process, which uses only four colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) in tiny halftone dots to build out color combinations that only appear as a solid, continuous color to the human eye. 

As a compulsive maker, the whole printing process is thrilling to Matt. Though he runs a lot of the business side of the PNP, he loves nearly every aspect of the making process. The DIY ethos seems ingrained in his DNA. In his off time, he sits at his lathe and turns wood. He restores vintage motorcycles. He’s built up all sorts of wooden structures around his home. Making feels like a mostly-healthy obsession - the drive to find a better technique, to make something look and feel better, to improve a process or system, to constantly learn and grow.  

A Compulsive Maker Helps Grow a Business

It’s no surprise that Matt’s been a core part of transforming PNP into the modern business it is now. He’s helped his shop transition from all manual processes to many that are automated through technology such as cleaning and pressing. Investments in tech have helped PNP not only increase their capacity for more product output, but it’s made work easier and more efficient, and importantly, more environmentally sustainable. He’s stoked about their newest screen imager, which allows them to take the acetate out of the process, eliminating toxic chemicals and miles of plastic sheeting. It’s now safer for everyone and better for the environment. The amount of new machinery they have still amazes him.

Though he’s involved in the creative production side, these days, his role at PNP is often  focused on financial management and business development. How does this sit with someone obsessed with making? It turns out, just fine. Sometimes, the creative, artistic mind seems at odds with a linear, business mind, but not for Matt who has integrated the two. Creating systems feels aligned with artistic thinking. Plus, he has two amazing business partners who he trusts and who have very complimentary skills, so it’s a relief to not have to focus on the full picture anymore. 

Matt has had to learn to think differently about money. Print companies are insane cash burners. Part of the business is constantly buying and selling printing goods and materials. At first, it was a trip to wrap his head around large numbers, especially since he started in his own home and had zero overhead. A decade later, he’s writing checks that are more than the cost of his whole college education. He’s learned to separate himself from the money. He sees a big number and understands that number belongs to a vendor, not PNP.  

And it wasn’t like one day he was operating out of a shed and the next he was running a 8,000 sf production space. The business grew incrementally. In the early days, he spent a lot of time reading. One of his absolute favorite business writers is Mike Michalowicz, who has a number of helpful books on financial planning and management that have helped guide his thinking about business growth. 

In a sense, Matt has always been responsible with money. Coming from humble beginnings in a working class family, he was fortunate to have good examples of work ethic and money management. When Matt was a child, his dad worked at McDonald’s. He also pushed a hot dog cart to make ends meet. But later, he enrolled at PSU, taking classes while working and caring for a family, and ultimately became an electrical engineer. His business partners didn’t come from wealth either, so it’s been easy to align on financial values. 

PNP has been in a phase of constant growth. They could take the money, go on a sweet vacation, spend it on themselves, or they could invest in equipment to increase speed and capacity, create more jobs, and better incomes for everyone. Time and time again, they choose the latter, and they haven't stepped away from that approach. Matt and his partners are not worried about getting rich. Rather, they want to run a solid business, produce great work, participate in the local economy, provide jobs for Portlanders, and create some financial stability for themselves. 

Surviving & Thriving Through COVID-19

But it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Matt’s deepest fear -- and biggest motivation -- is making sure everyone on his team gets their paycheck. He feels an enormous amount of love and responsibility for them. So when COVID-19 hit, and they hit a slump, they had to figure out a way to keep everyone employed and keep the business afloat. 

They ended up creating a fundraising program to help small businesses survive. It helped them stay operating while also helping other locals in the process. They created web stores for their customers, pre-sold products, packed and shipped them, and then sent their customers checks. 

For example, The Portland Mercury, a local, independent paper lost their primary source of income from the coronavirus, advertising from local restaurants, shops, and entertainment venues. PNP helped them with a fundraising campaign by printing and selling reproduction posters of covers from their print addition, all designed by independent artists. 

The Portland Small Business Scene

One of the best things about Portland is it’s local business scene. The community and the entrepreneurial spirit of the small business owners in this city are impressive and inspiring to him. 

He worries that things are becoming harder for small businesses, as Portland is changing. More and more, small businesses have to deal with out-of-state property owners, and rents have become very expensive. Despite how many small businesses we have, the City of Portland is actually not a very friendly place for small businesses. Permits take forever, stalling necessary operations, and the city has strict and specific development requirements that cost small businesses tens (and tens) of thousands of dollars out-of- pocket without any assistance. To negotiate some of these requirements, businesses need to hire lawyers and consultants, which is also costly.

Still, small businesses figure it out, despite the obstacles, and Matt loves that. He’s helped a lot of his friends with their businesses. He helped a buddy knock down the walls in Dig-a-Pony and get set up, and they’ve been so successful that they’ve got a second bar, Hey Love, in the Jupiter hotel. It’s been amazing to watch his friends start successful, long-lasting businesses. 

The Lesson: Don’t let your parents tell you not to go to art school 

As a business, PNP has been able to do amazing things with amazing clients for years now, and overall, Matt feels deep gratitude for all he’s been able to do and all the opportunities he’s had.

If he were to give advice to anyone it is this: “Sticking with what you're doing is the greatest path to success. Being tenacious. I was taught to chase a career path that made me miserable, and I found something that I loved and I stuck with it.” As a result, he helped create 19 jobs, and his daily in and out function is to keep doing just that. He loves his work and is excited to keep moving forward. 

*Eli helped Pacific North Press lease their current space at 14 NE Tillamook in 2017. 

Pacific North Press is a screen printing company providing custom t shirts, custom apparel, custom stickers, digitally printed posters, vinyl lettering, and custom decal printing services throughout Portland, OR, Vancouver, WA, Gresham, OR, and Beaverton, OR. Specializing in high-quality screen printing, Pacific North Press offers process printing, and discharge printing services, using plastisol and water based ink.