Cow Gum use in graphic design

It’s fair to say that times have certainly changed over the last few years – styles change, fashions come and go and technology improves all the time. Cow Gum use in graphic design is virtually unheard of today.

This also means in business that certain products are no longer used or even relevant. ❌

🐮 Before I worked on a Mac I would use Cow Gum nearly every day for pasting up artwork. It had lots of uses, apart from the proper ones like sticking bromides down on to backing boards. 

🏐 You could let it dry and roll it into balls which would have the most amazing bounce quality. We used to have competitions by seeing who could drop their Cow Gum ball out of the window and get the highest bounce off the street below.

🗄 Another favourite was leaving the can open on its side on the edge of a filing cabinet before we left the studio at night. After several hours the stuff would run down the side of the cabinet and reach the floor – just in time to catch out the cleaners on their 6am shift.

😆 See, you just can’t have that sort of fun nowadays with Adobe or Affinity because it’s all digital. It’s a shame to think of all those years spent using Cow Gum nearly every day now it seems to have entirely disappeared almost as though it never existed. 

🧑🏻‍💻The last time I checked it doesn’t even have an entry in Wikipedia, instead you have to search for Rubber Cement instead. Cow Gum use in graphic design just doesn’t happen anymore.

❓What is it in your industry that you don’t use anymore? It might be a product that’s no longer safe to use, or it could be something that has been replaced by technology. Let me know.