Interview: Nevio Buzov

First few basic questions, who are you, what are you doing, where are you coming from?

My name is Nevio Buzov, I am 45 years old and I have 3 sons (19, 9, and 2 years). I live in Croatia and at the time my only occupation is (besides my family, of course) is 46pgs. Magazine. I worked in a factory for 22 years as a manager but due to the bankruptcy of the company in which I worked – I lost my “regular” job. Now I am tryin’ fuckin hard to make a living of my family and my own out of 46pgs. Magazine. It’s hard. Please don’t get me wrong – 46pgs. is going better and better from issue to issue and I am very satisfied with it but it is not enough to live out of it. I am sure that this time will come, even better, but until then I must find a “regular” job in order to assure the existence of my family. Listen, man, I don’t want to listen to those who tell me that I should “formulate” my answers on the way and in order to leave a “good impression” (whatever this should be) but I don’t want to lie and give you “political” answers on your questions but raw truth, however, it may look to someone…

How did you start the 46pgs? And what made you want to do your own magazine?

Story of 46pgs. Magazines begins in the year 2000 when I get my first PC and modem and when I find out the works of Thomas Schostok and Eduardo Recife. {ths} Beast and Eduardo’s 6 sets of free PS brushes are prima causa for my deviation into graphic design. Then totally inspired and motivated by the works of Thomas and Eduardo I spent all my free time for the next 5 years creating my own “works” and saving them on the hard disk of my PC. After becoming sales manager in the above-mentioned factory I stopped doing anything connected with graphic design but I saved and recorded all my works and everything I collected from the internet with a style which was “presented” to me through Thomas and Eduardo’s works – wild, new, grunge graphic design style which was already existed from the middle 90s (but I discovered this very late – first time I heard about Raygun and Chris Ashworth and David Carson was 4 years ago when I create my IG account). So I just keep a record and transfer everything I did and collect from 2000-2005 from PC to PC, hard disks, DVDs… I don’t why I did this…I didn’t show my works to anyone nor publish it, nothing… just kept them in my archives. Then, in 2017 I created my IG account and find out about amazing designers and artists who still created stuff as I created back in 2000 and I was “waken” again and I started to post my old stuff on IG. Then I find out about Raygun and BlahBlahBlah magazines and I was stunned. I realized that none of those great magazines exist today. Not even one magazine with such as “grunge” aesthetics which I love so much. That was it. From that point on I knew that I want to make a magazine. Another reason I started my own magazine was the concept – I wanted that people “design their best songs, movies, quotes” whatever they are passionate about – on several pages and I want to publish those “design passions” in the form of a magazine. In April 2020 I made a list of designers who I wanted to participate in the first issue, including Thomas Schostok, {ths}. To my enormous surprise – Thomas was amongst the first who respond to me with his “yes” to the participation in 46pgs. Magazine. He do even much much more – he design the first version of our website, a bunch of promo material for our first issue, technical data sheets (manual) which I use still today when I send materials to new designers and artists and since then – he never turned me down and every time he “gave” me what I asked him.

How would you describe the 46pgs’ curatorial identity?

We are pretty simple. There is something which I call “46pgs. material” and I will send it to you in another email just to give you insight into this material. It’s an email with an invitation for participation in which I exactly describe what I would like to see from the person to whom I send materials. Also, those materials contain the article example, technical requirements for articles/artworks which will be potentially published in 46pgs. Magazine and, as for me, the most important part – word document in which I described the concept of 46pgs. Magazine. The thing which made us unique and original and which differ us from other magazines – I give total freedom to designers/artists to express themselves. All I ask is that artist/designer which I like and for which I want to participate in 46pgs. Magazine is that they literally “design their passion on several pages”. I explain this in materials which I send to designers/artists on the article example, on my work on 6 pages. I love, better said I am passionate for Apocalypse Now movie, especially the part of the movie when Captain Willard and his crew (what’s the rest of it) enter col Kurtz’s hell – end of the river. I am totally passionate about this part of the movie – these 45 minutes of the movie. And I try to “design” this 45 minutes of that movie on 6 pages. This is what I want from our designers/artists – take a thing (song, movie, quote, poem, book, actor, whatever….) about which you are passionate about and design it.
Sometimes it’s not like his – sometimes we take just artworks of designer/artist which we like and present this designer/artist but most our designers/artist/photographers like the concept and accept it and deliver us their passion designed on few pages.

I think that this is also our huge advantage compared to the magazines who follow trends and what’s actually in for example in music. Our concept is timeless. Passion is passion and it will be always actual and it never goes out of trend. It will be always actual. So when I see a designer or artist or photographer whose works amazed me – I ask her/him to “design its own passion” and send it to us. If we promise that article will be published – it will be published for sure it’s just a matter of issue – namely, in which issue we will publish it. We don’t make issues on the “thematic” way but purely on how the entire issue looks like and are the articles which are in specific issue – graphically coherent or not – ok, I will cut the crap – art director in collaboration with me make “schedule” of articles which will be in the specific issue out of all unpublished articles and we complete specific issue on this way.

What kind of creative process is it to make a magazine?

As per my opinion, the most important thing is to have a concept. Clear, understandable concept of a magazine. What you want present in your magazine. What’s your magazine about. You must be able to describe the concept in one sentence which will be understandable to anyone. For 46pgs. magazine this is what I mentioned above – “design your passion”. Take your favorite song and design it. Take your favorite movie and design it. Got it? It’s clear. There is no doubt. Then you must be clear and understandable about how you want that articles in your magazine look like – for 46pgs., Magazine his is also clear – 90s grunge style which was first time presented in Raygun and BlahBlahBlah. I don’t have any kind of problem admitting this and saying that Raygun, BlahBlahBlah, and Thoms Schostok {ths} Beast (maybe more than any other magazine because o look at the Beast as the holy grail of graphic design) are the reasons why I made 46pgs. Magazine. You must give absolute creative freedom to designers/artists to express themselves – no interruptions, no sending of artworks to the art director or me or anyone on endless checkings and corrections and shit like this. We are not a magazine like this. Our designers and artists which artworks we publish have absolute creative freedom to express themselves – the only limitations which they have is that delivered artwork must be in dimensions 22,5 x 22,5 cm + 0,5 cm bleed on each side and resolution of 300 dpi. That’s it.

It is crucial that you are 100% sure in your vision of the magazine – that you – the person who made the magazine – know how the damn thing must look and “feels” like. If this is clear then you just need to communicate your idea in the simplest and most efficient way to all included. And then everything is easy. Ah and one thing more – honesty. No lies. This is very very important. And keep things in written form. You’ll be very surprised how some of the major figures in graphic design style which we all in 46pgs. love and want to keep alive – lies, how they present themselves as very humble and accessible persons and how many times they promised us participation and do nothing, even more – lie to us. But I keep all shits in written form. I am not interested in any kind of “yellow-journalism” and selling “juicy” stuff and shits… noooo. I want to publish talented “grunge” artists of all kinds and, of course, things which I like. And that’s it. But… you’ll be a surprised man. Very surprised. Also, surprise goes in both directions. As I said – there are fantastic examples of very successful graphic designers and artists who stay normal and who communicate with us on the daily basis and help us so many times. I will always mention positive examples and talk and write about them. I will not talk and write about liars and those bad ones.

Practically it looks like this – to make a magazine – I search for designers/artists of all kinds/photographers/writers which work I like and when I find one – I send a message and ask if she/he wants to join us. Almost in 100% of cases, the answer is yes. Then I send “46pgs. materials” and I determine the deadline for delivering the finished article. Articles arrive on my email. I collect them all and discuss them with JUDGENOT COLLECTIVE. This is 46pgs. crew = art director and 10 of us who are included in everything regarding 46pgs. Magazine. We determine (JUDGENOT COLLECTIVE) who will be the art director of the specific issue. Then I give access to all unpublished articles and proposals for specific issues regarding articles and designers who should be included in a specific issue. The final decision and everything else – design of layouts, front cover, back cover, #general” design of specific issue – is up to the art director. It’s simple. It’s a lot of work, millions of emails, really a lot of operative work but if you love what you do and you know what you want to produce – then it is fun and joy. After the art director finish “printer’s file” (the file which we give to the print company for printing) – I deliver it to the print company which is 30 km far from the place where I live, we check the file together and the printer finishes the process with the production of the specific issue.

When building a new issue, do you have a clear vision of the outcome? How easy is it to find or create the editorial ”red line” for each issue?

No. Never. It may sound like a cliche and cool thing, but we never have a clear vision of the outcome. Not for even one issue we made up today. It’s very easy to find/create an editorial “red line” for each issue. As I mentioned above – we know what we want from 46pgs. Magazine and when we put afore ourselves all unpublished articles – looking at all of them in 15 minutes we determine “red line” for each issue. Call it a gift or whatever – but it’s maybe the easiest thing for us.

How much do you curate the works?

Few days for each issue. As I mentioned above – when I find a designer/artist/photographer/writer which I like – I don’t postpone anything – I send messages immediately asking for collaboration. Also as I explained above – the concept of 46pgs. Magazine is timeless, it is not connected to “what is actually in music for example”. It is connected with “what is actually in heart of people”. Niko, there are things in your life about which you will be always passionate. You will always and forever love and be passionate about some song, or book, or poem, or magazine, or whatever you are passionate about – and that stuff doesn’t go away. They will be relevant forever. 46pgs. is a magazine with a graphic heart. It is not just a nice play of words. Charlie (Charles Bruijn) made this subtitle for 46pgs. immediately after I explain to him what I would like to do. And he described it the best. It’s really not a play of words. No. I take {ths} Beast’s – Bible of inspiration seriously. The same is with Raygun’s “Bible of music + style”. These are words of truth and I take them seriously. This is what I want also for 46pgs. Magazine and Charlie hits the bullseye.
So when people send me their works I saved them all – each one in a separate folder – and when we make a new issue we just open the “book” and look at it and choose articles on the way that this specific issue looks good. For us passion is passion. There is no better or less good passion. Every passion is worth equally and we treat each received work equally. It’s a serious thing for us. We ask people to give us their heart on the paper and they do this.

46pgs is very visually grunge, what do you think people feel when they read the magazine? And why do you think people read the magazine?

Yes, it is. It is very grunge. And this is what our intention is – to be very visually grunge. At the beginning of 46pgs. publishing I have this romantic idea that people who will take 46pgs. Magazine in their hands become motivated to do things after they go through the pages of 46pgs. I imagine that after “reading” (better say seeing) 46pgs. Magazine, people start to do things that they wanted to do all their life but never did. I don’t have to imagine or think anymore – we receive hundreds of emails, messages, etc. in which people say that every page of 46pgs. The magazine is an endless source of inspiration and motivation. That 46pgs. motivate them to do similar things – because they love the style, they love the concept, they love the concept of “designing their passion”. We are all eternally thankful for such reactions on 46pgs. Magazine. I mean this is what we want and what we imagine – this is what we get.
People buy and “read” 46pgs. Magazine in order to see the best grunge and grunge-like artworks and to inspire and motivate themselves for their own creations.

What is your favorite publication as an editor? And why, what makes it your favorite?

Thomas Schostok {ths}’s Beast. When I saw it for the first time it was like a fucking revelation for me. Thomas create something I always dreamed of. This is what I want to do.
Why Beast is my favorite – first because of availability. In 2000, also as now, I lived in Croatia, actually in a small town in the east of the country where God says God Night a long time ago. Nothing of magazines and all kind of literature comes here. Nothing. But we had always very strong punk and later all kinds of diversifications of the punk scene in this Gods-forgotten town. For example, I brought some music back in 1989 (when I was 13) for the first time in our capital – Zagreb, from here while I was on summer holiday at my cousin’s in Zagreb. Beast was free and it was available via the internet. Second and third and hundred – (for me) totally new style opposite to sterile company flat design, it was so grunge, for the first time I saw pages made as beautifully composed collages, hand-written stuff, no grids, graphic elements contained everyday stuff you can find in trash cans, revolutionary design style if I must say it short. Please don’t forget that I didn’t hear about Raygun, BlahBlahBlah until 4 years ago!!! I don’t have anyone to tell me – look this is good stuff or you should see this and that. I don’t have any kind of graphic design education nor any kind of education in art in general. I am fucking economist. I finish economic studies (organization and management) at the University of Zagreb. Even in Zagreb – you can find Raygun, BlahBlahBlah – nothing man! Absolutely nothing. Everything I find out was by myself and I have no one to talk to about graphic design or similar stuff.
Later I discovered Raygun and BlahBlahBlah and just before a couple of months Charlie sent me one hard copy of Raygun and BlahBlahBlah – I never had them before in my hands. But I bought all books about Raygun. all Carson’s book, tons of different Rockport’s books about graphic design and typography, and still – Beast, printed and spiral bounded 12 issues of Beast was and still is my favorite.
For me, Beast is equally inspirational and revolutionary now as it was before 22 years. Check it – it’s still free on ths.nu.
And you can imagine when Thomas said “yes” to 46pgs. and created immediately article for No.1, give a few proposals for cover and for a contents page, designed a website, and offered me his help for future issues… I was out of space for months. A few issues later, Eduardo Recife message me and offer me also participation… can you imagine – both of my graphic design idols offered me their help. I appreciate this. I will never forget this. Those are people who don’t need any kind of “approval” for their work, these are people who are financially independent, they don’t need 46pgs., yet – they are here for us. Not only for 46pgs. Magazine, they are here for many small, new publications. This is what I appreciate. People who stand strong with their feet on the ground.

Do you have any other magazines or publications you’d want to publish?

Yes. Stay tuned! We prepare some surprises in the field of magazines, books and…
Oh and here, even it is not connected with your question – I want to mention Plastikcomb Magazine and my friend Aaron Beebe. Aaron works together with Thomas on PCM and the magazine is absolutely fantastic. Also, Aaron did such a fine thing for 46pgs. Magazine. Once, when the time comes and is right, I will tell the whole story. Absolutely great magazine and one great good man – Aaron Beebe.