National Paste Up Day

Today (May 7, 2022) is National Paste Up Day. I was a journalist from September 1982 to April 2017, so I am quite intimate with the construction of pages of print publications by hand.

The outdated, yet traditional process is, basically: Just print out paper strips of stories, photos, captions, and headlines, (and advertisements), and then run them through a hot-wax machine, and then affix everything on pages of thin, gridded cardboard. Then, take a small, handheld roller to secure everything. Stick the pages in a printer, and there you have your print publication. Basically.

I must admit that I do miss constructing print publications using paste up, but I certainly do not miss burning my hands on the hot-wax machines and also often stabbing myself in the fingers with those X-ACTO (Exacto) Knives. Both: Ouch !!!

The first time I did paste up was in 1982, when I started as a writer and paste-up guy with The Villanovan, the student newspaper of Villanova University. After graduating in December 1984 with a bachelor's degree in communications with a French minor, I then earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia in May 1988. I then did paste up as part of my first salaried job for a newspaper in 1989 to 1990, along with writing, editing, page designing, and taking photographs.

Then, three jobs later, from 1992 to 1996, I was back in part doing paste up. For this new job, I was a writer, editor, and researcher for an international, weekly magazine on the chemical industry. During the first year or so of that gig, we constructed pages manually, using paste up.

On a rotating basis of our editorial staff, every other Friday, I would take the train with a few of my co-workers from New York City (Manhattan), where our office was located, to Westport, Connecticut, to put together the magazine in the old-fashioned way.

We would meet with a few composing-room people in an old, brick building and spend the day cranking out the pages. Luckily, we soon switched to a process where the pages were designed on computer screens in our New York City office, so we didn't have to take that long, round-trip journey anymore. Still, it was nice getting out of "The City" to work in a different locale.

(Later in my journalistic career, I would have jobs that would afford me the opportunity to become again involved with paste up.)