Hi Ákos, please introduce yourself. What’s there to know about you?

My name is Ákos Déri, I work in book publishing. I usually put it like this because I’m not just an editor but also a creative director. I edit the book series Bázis Könyvek (Base Books - ed.). In general, I’m the editor and creative director of Open Books, I play music and do many other things.

 

Can you tell us more about your background in music?

Yes, I’m a member of the band Berriloom and the Doom. We’re just finishing up our first studio album.

 

 

What’s the story of your relationship with YKRA? It’s quite a fun one.

 

I think it was around 2012 when I started doing a little bit of everything for YKRA—it was back in the basement of Telep [ a bar in downtown Budapest, from where the brand hails (ed.) ]. I can’t recall my official position, but as is often the case in small teams, we all ended up doing all sorts of different tasks.

For example, I was responsible for procurement, and we also contacted international stores, cold-calling them. When they said yes, we were over the moon!

 

Downstairs, there was a sewing shop. An elderly lady from Érd would come in every Wednesday or Friday to sew the bags that we sent abroad—ensuring they were top-quality products. It was such a fun, cozy atmosphere.

 

With Ákos [ another Ákos, Ákos Komlovszky, friend and co-worker ], we used to visit sewing shops in the countryside, deliver fabrics, and buy accessories. There was even an ex-soldier in Újpest who cut the leather for the backpacks at the time — he’s still there.

 

 

How long did you work for YKRA?

Not sure. It was around one and a half years.

 

How did you switch from YKRA to the world of books?

This is a less exciting story. I was a university student back then, and I was also working for YKRA. One day, I was preparing for an exam and I had to read a book published by the publishing house Typotex, and so I followed them on Facebook. As soon as I followed them, they posted an ad looking for an assistant editor. I applied knowing painfully well I’d never done anything like that in my life. My boss hired me because he liked my music — I included it in my CV. He said, “Ákos, come work for us, you seem like a fun guy, and I don’t like quarreling with my employees all day.” We talked a lot about music — he was more on the passive side, listening, rather than making. He’s since jumped ship and moved to Dublin to work in IT. As for me, after working at Typotex I also worked for Libri Bookstore for a short while, before we founded Open Books.

 

 

 

What does a day in your life look like? What does a creative director do daily?

 

My day starts with walking my dog, Jucuska, on the hill. Then I make a coffee, sit down at my computer, start calling people and sending emails. This part sounds kind of boring. We do have an office, but I don’t go in often, because there is a lot of commotion — but of course, when I need to, I do. It’s pretty nice, but in my opinion, I find it’s less YKRA-compatible in terms of style. This is where we have meetings, and welcome the authors and designers. When I put it like this, it sounds like your ordinary office job — meetings and all — but underneath it, this profession really is about telling stories visually and in text, and that part is incredibly exciting and never ends.

 

An interesting aspect of my routine is that I might have a lightbulb moment while walking my dog at 10 pm about for example, what astrophysicist Ágnes Kiss-Tóth should write in the manuscript or what we should put on the cover of her book. 

 

We go to book fairs four or five times a year. Some are the usuals of the international book fair circuit — London, Frankfurt, sometimes Torino and Bologna — but there’s also one in Taiwan, for example, where I haven’t been yet. These are invitation-based and we represent our publishing house. There are times when we get invited just like a scholarship, and then sometimes we just show up — mostly to the ones in Europe. So there’s that. These fairs are always great, we’re able to gain inspiration and insight into how things are on the international scene. But as I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I feel like I have seen what’s been done there, too. We try to keep ourselves up-to-date about the market and I’m happy to say that we’re succeeding.

 

 

I assume you also have band practice at some point in your day?

 

Yes, after work I drag myself to our rehearsal space on Galvani Street, where we channel our remaining energy, there’s usually not much left! These sessions are like a second shift that often last until around 9–10 pm. My weekends, thankfully, are centered around rest, and I really need it. Sometimes I say yes to other things, which really, I shouldn’t. To have a public conversation with someone, for example. Tomorrow, I’m talking to a friend of mine about his collection of poems being published. Some days, I feel like I’m overextending myself.

 

 

YKRA MATRA MINI - This fabric is a piece of the past. This bag is from our experimental era. I think our trail of thought was that we found this fabric in a store and thought it had a cool pattern, and it’s fairly thick, so let’s see what we can do with it. And so the adorable sewing lady whose name I still can’t remember created a sample, and we realised “OK, that’s definitely not it”. It wasn’t what we envisioned, but it was too cool to let it wither away in a cardboard box. This was around 2012 when Balázs — and YKRA — started experimenting with more exciting patterns to do away with having only basic colours and instead explore collaborations.

 

Wallet - This is a classic wallet, a Bellroy one. I had another one that I liked a lot, but I’ve outgrown it because of all the cards I keep on me. I try to get rid of the unnecessary junk and avoid it becoming the stereotypical male wallet with 32 random handwritten notes and whatnot.

 

Notebook - My notebook is very important to me. This is a 2-in-1 calendar and notebook organised around months. There’s more free space to write down thoughts, so the calendar part is just for looking at the dates when I need to. Writing things down is essential when you are juggling many projects at the same time. Weekly calendars don’t work for me because I feel like I lose my notes as the weeks pass. Here, I have everything in one place. I can look at them organised according to the week, and when I look at them, I feel very content.

 

Book - This book is by British psychoanalytic psychotherapist and essayist Adam Phillips. I think he is one of the best essayists of our time. It’s titled On Giving Up and it’s precisely about that — the moment when you cross that line to give something up, which can be anything from your life, your work, your art. You might think it’s a philosophical piece, but it’s rather straightforward. As an author, Adam Philips usually chooses topics that interest everyone, such as Attention Seeking, a book about how we, people with a Western background, all crave attention and how nowadays we mix this up with a pathological need for attention. Another one of his works, On Getting Better, tackles how humans, since the beginning of time, try to feel better, and what are some of the ways we can do so. These essential questions are dealt with in shorter form. I’m looking forward to publishing this author so that his words are available in Hungarian. He hasn’t been put on the international map just yet, however, he is well-respected in the UK. He really is an extraordinary man.

 

Earbuds - I’ve had these for a while now. They’re quite sturdy, and I haven’t lost them yet. I listen to a lot of different things, right now, since we’re working on our album, I mostly listen to the band’s mixes — it’s important to hear the songs through ordinary headphones like these.

 

Glasses - I bought my glasses around two years ago. I mostly use them for reading and working on my computer. I don’t have a strong prescription, but I do use them daily.

 

Business Card - I always have some business cards on me. The phone number is incorrect, I still don’t have any idea who it belongs to. I thought it was a colleague’s, but the number doesn’t exist. This batch has almost run out so I can finally replace my card and fix this mistake. 

 

Keys - This NUEN key chain was made by Norbi Nguyen ages ago and it’s still in great shape. The carabiner broke once, but it’s truly indestructible, you can just put it back together. He made one for himself and I thought “Oh, that’s really nice and practical” so he made one for me as well. We went to the same high school, by the way.

 

Water Bottle - My water bottle is so important to me, I bring it with me everywhere. In the morning I drink coffee from it, then water. I drink a lot of water.

 

reMarkable - reMarkable is a work tool for me, I read manuscripts on it. I’ve had it for 4 years, and I first bought it because I hated the small Kindles that made a manuscript into thousands of pages. This one is much bigger, and also has many great functions. Since then, everyone at Open Books who works with texts got one. When they first saw it, they didn’t understand what kind of space technology is this device!? When I talked to András Kepes [a prominent Hungarian writer ] yesterday, he also examined it and realised he wanted one too. Although, I have to add, he changed his mind and decided he’d stick to his iPad.

 

Macbook - My Macbook is the item that I use the most. 

 

photo by Botond Wertán