Observed annually on May 7th, National Paste-Up Day is a holiday that remembers a way of laying out pages for publication that has gone all but extinct. Back in the good old days before computerized imaging and desktop publishing, magazines and other publications had to layout articles by hand so they can be collated into the finished product.

This was a process that required a professional paste-up artist to make sure the copy, photos, and other page elements were all aligned properly. Now thanks to digital processing, just about anyone can accomplish the same tasks quickly and easily with a very small learning curve required.

The History Of National Paste-Up Day

We’re unsure of when this holiday was invented or who invented it, so there’s not much to see here. We’ll continue to look for clues into the creation of this holiday, but until then, we hope everyone enjoys the following section.

The Facts About Magazines

Since paste-up artists worked for magazines (as well as newspapers), we thought that we’d take a few moments to give our readers some facts about magazines that we think they might like.

• Magazine readership has actually grown over the last 3-years.
• Approximately 4 out of 5 adults read magazines—although many of those magazines are now digital.
• The average person will spend 43-minutes reading their favorite magazine issue.
• Magazine readership in the 18-35 year range has been growing over the last few years.

Observing National Paste-Up Day

Although the art of doing paste-ups may have seemingly vanished, people still have to use desktop publishing software to craft their articles, so on this day, let’s all celebrate the people who do that. These people can be thanked by giving them a heartfelt shout-out on social media using the hashtag #NationalPasteUpDay.