[1991] Cut & Paste: Demystifying How Graphic Design Was Done Before Computers

You weren’t a graphic designer if you couldn’t draw.

Retro Tech Show

15 min read

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Aug 19, 2026

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By Jesse Karjalainen

(Not a Medium member? Go to the Retro Tech Series. Join me on all your favourite social platforms: YouTube | TikTok.)

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Love it or hate it, the 2020s are the era of the content creator.

Everyone, from 8-year-olds to their great-grandmothers, is hustling in today’s content economy. They are creating audio, video, and “digital products” such as ebooks, PDF guides, and courses. Or they are self-published authors who are hustling and grinding the hardest.

These folks are part of the growing army of amateur creators — a chaotic and haphazard new breed of people engaged in the broader creative industries.

Alongside them, looking on in equal parts horror and disdain, is a cohort of “old school” creative professionals. I include myself in this latter category. We are the ones who have earned our stripes in the professional realm, be it in publishing, advertising or the media.

We know our professional tools like the back of our hands and can talk for hours about image resolution, colour space and the nuances of kerning. We can put you to sleep by talking about how hard it is to create matching on-screen dark blues with a CMYK-printed version. Canva? What a joke!