National Paste Up Day celebrates the ingenious, hands-on technique of physically arranging text and images for print every May 7. This day honors the pre-digital era of graphic design, where artists meticulously cut and pasted elements to create layouts. Dive into the history of print, try your hand at collage, and appreciate the tactile artistry of paste-up.
History of National Paste Up Day
Before the existence of fancy editing software, designers had to figure out many different ways to create the layout for publication pages, photographs, and advertisements. To do so, artists used the paste-up method, which can be considered equivalent to a sort of collage. Since there were no computers to facilitate the process, the paste-up artist would carefully cut and arrange different sections of typographic elements on a page to create a readable and aesthetically pleasing design.
The paste-up artist would receive the elements in several strips of paper and apply them to a board using wax adhesive. If any photos needed to be attached they went through a thorough halftoning, and colors were inverted for the negative of the entire page to be created. This negative would work as a sort of stamp on the actual pages of the newspaper when turned into a printing plate.
To create the guidelines and margins of the negative, paste-up artists painted them using cyan-colored ink, which would not be seen by the film used to make the printing plates. Should a newspaper already have a line of publishing, the artist wouldn’t have to go through the work of painting those lines on, as the boards would already be available. Since the 1990s, publishers have used computer software to develop layouts and print them out on special printers.
National Paste Up Day timeline
In Ancient Rome, announcements are carvings on rock and metal.
Johann Gutenberg invents the very first press, which helps publish books.
They have small sheets with information for merchants in Europe, and they start circulating.
Newspaper and magazine publishing companies begin to use computer software for layouts.
National Paste Up Day FAQs
National Paste Up Day Activities
Make paste-up art
The best way to celebrate is to, of course, paste-up art yourself! Grab your scissors and dig into old magazines and newspapers or print out some stuff and glue it all on a blank paper to create a beautiful piece of art!
Read an old newspaper at a museum
You can always visit a museum that displays old newspapers and check the results of paste-up art! You may discover things you’ve never seen before!
Give someone cutouts
If you have a bunch of leftover cutouts from your paste-up art, give them away to someone and ask them to create a beautiful piece for you! They’ll be happy to!
5 Facts About Newspapers You’ll Love
They’re older than you think
In Britain, the first newspaper was published in 1621.
It’s the best place to advertise
Eight in 10 adults went after a product they’ve seen advertised in newspapers.
It has many formats
With the internet, newspapers are now a collection of posts.
It’s almost as big as television
Online news has almost the same viewership as T.V. news.
Weather forecasts are a key feature
70% of Americans consider the weather report the most important detail from the newspaper.
Why We Love National Paste Up Day
It’s all about art
How can we not love celebrating the beauty and importance of artistic expression? This day keeps us akin to our creative essence!
It connects us to our past
To remember paste-up art is to remember our past and appreciate all we have today! Do some research into your past on this day.
It keeps us creative
Making art and using random pieces of pictures and words to create art is a great way to remain creative. And we love creativity!
National Paste Up Day dates
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | May 7 | Friday |
| 2028 | May 7 | Sunday |
| 2029 | May 7 | Monday |
| 2030 | May 7 | Tuesday |
| 2031 | May 7 | Wednesday |
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