National Paste Up Day
On May 7th each year, remembers the days before desktop publishing and computerized digital photography, when many journals were printed by hand. Many people who worked so ardently in their positions were also remembered on the day.
Paste-up refers to a method of preparing and laying out pages of a journal. A paste-up artist, mechanical engineer, product designer, or compositor, as well as a compositor. Part of the paste-up artist's regular duties would be to divide the type into sections and arrange it carefully across multiple columns. They were also responsible for inserting the headlines and other typographical elements. These parts were not sold separately.
They worked for newspapers, magazines, catalogs, and other publishers. Paste-up artists used x-acto knives and concentrated on precision, according to the artist. Although a journalist may have written an article with more detail and gusto, if the 327-word column space didn't fit, the paste-up artist would cut a line or two to make it fit. Ad space paid for salaries and images often needed cropping, and advertisements that were not. Since the position called for an eye for detail, paste-up artists were in high demand in the publishing industry, and they could also face deadline pressures. Nonetheless, they stayed their alleys clean and assembled their mechanicals on time for the presses.
How to celebrate #nationalpasteup #nationalpasteup, according to the author
Paste-up artists gained experience in a variety of ways from small presses evening papers to university presses. Although word processing technology has largely ruined paste-up, the eye for precision and organization persists in the printing industry. Although word processing appears to have shattered the art of paste-up today, word processing technology hasn't completely killed the art of paste-up. Using #NationalPasteUp on social media, you can show how paste-up artists have influenced the art of printing today.
