Design rarely takes the spotlight in cinema
– let alone stationary design. But in American Psycho, Patrick Bateman is
a superficial, materialistic, bloodthirsty psychopath with extremely strong feelings
about business cards. But does he know what he's talking about when
it comes to design? In this video, I'm going to break down the
details from a designer's perspective and take a look at what American Psycho got right...
and mostly wrong about business cards. Let's return some videotapes. Is that a gram? New card. What do you think? Whoa. Very nice. Look at that. Picked them up from the printers yesterday. Good coloring. That's bone. And the lettering is something called Silian
Rail. Okay, let's start with what's right: "bone". Now this is relatively believable. The material cards are printed on is cardstock
and it comes in many different shades of white. It can be down to the material it's made from,
either paper or cotton, and the addition of brightening agents such as titanium dioxide. There are various numbered systems for precisely
specifying different coloured inks. Pantone being the most famous, but there's
no equivalent universal naming convention for whites. Here are some various colour options from
Neenah Paper and G.F. Smith. Each supplier has their own name system for
these different shades and "bone" would totally fit right in. Though, in all likelihood, the name would
be probably used for something warmer, maybe a more yellow shade than the one he's referring
to. The lettering on the other hand is not "Silian
Rail". No such font has ever existed. This is purely from the writer's imagination. It's a weird name. Silian Rail would perhaps make sense for a
railway company from Silia. Like the name of The type used by Transport
for London is called Johnston Underground. But there is no place called Silia. And in any case that style of lettering would
probably be kind of wrong for an investment banker like dressing in a set of overalls
instead of a power suit. The front of actually used a version of Garamond,
a family of many typefaces derived from the work of Claude Garamond, a 16th century French
engraver. Garamond is what's called an Old Style serif. It's very conservative and conformist so it
works perfectly well for this context. After too many hours of researching trying
to nail down the exact version of Garamond used, it's left me stumped. This font mystery has defeated me. Like Darwin's finches or Ray's Original Pizzas
in New York, there are just simply too many dozens upon dozens of variations. An article by Claire Green from 2018 suggested
it to be Garamond Classico Small Cap by Linotype, but the numeral five doesn't match and the
ampersand in that font is cap-height, not x-height at least in the PostScript Type 1
version I was able to track down from 1994 which makes the strongest candidate chronologically. That article has lots of additional detail
I won't be able to cover in this video so I've left the link in the description if you're
interested in reading it. That aside, the first thing Bateman should
have done when he picked up these cards from the printer is send them straight back, because
there are multiple errors. Firstly acquisitions is misspelt missing a
"C" as it is in all the cards in this clip. Also, the second space is missing from Pierce
& Pierce. We'll talk about the layout printing and cardstock
when we've seen the group as a whole For now, let's keep watching. It's very cool, Bateman. But that's nothing. Look at this. That is really nice. Eggshell with Romalian type. What do you think? Nice. Okay, the "eggshell" colour is very similar
to Bateman's "bone". What Van Patten is calling "Romalian" and
here is actually a version of Bodoni which is categorised as a modern serif, from the
Didone family. You might recognise this style from the masthead
of Vogue. A signature feature of this style of type
is the high stroke contrast - that is, the greater the difference between thin and thick
lines within the type, the higher the stroke contrast. Didone faces have been quite popular in the
fashion world. It's very striking in editorial use, and therefore
it was used first by Harper's Bazaar, then Vogue and then in turn by fashion labels such
as Armani, Calvin Klein, Valentino and Elizabeth Arden, amongst others. They've all used this style of font as their
brand typeface over the years. Therefore, it's not a font you'd associate
automatically with investment banking, though, plausibly - in the late 1980s - it could have
just been on the right side of acceptably trendy. Jesus. This is really super. How'd a nitwit like you get so tasteful? I can't believe that Bryce prefers Van Patten's
card to mine. But wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Raised lettering, pale nimbus white... Impressive. Very nice. Okay, so the screenplay makes it clear that
"Pale Nimbus White" is supposed to be the colour. Not an imaginary font, followed by the colour. The delivery is a little ambiguous. The lettering however, is definitely not raised. In fact looking closely we can see the lettering
is slightly debossed - the complete opposite of raised. We'll get to debossing later but there are
actually two ways to achieve raised lettering in the late 1980s. A third method - spot UV varnishing - has
become more popular since the 2000s. The first more expensive and traditional way
is called engraving or embossing, also die stamping. These are all the same term. This is done by etching a plate or die. Traditionally, this was done by hand, but
usually it's done at least partly by chemical process these days. The recesses of this dye are filled with ink
and the paper is pressed against the die during the printing any part of the die which hasn't
been etched will then crushed down the fibres of the paper flattening them and leaving behind
a raised printed image. The second, cheaper way is called thermography,
in which a print is made conventionally then an additional layer is printed and a powder
of thermoplastic is added on top, which sticks to that layer. The powder is then melted to produce the raised
effect. This is usually noticeably glossy and can
be brittle as well. It's not particularly high fidelity, so it
doesn't work for type at small point sizes. Not that Bryce has to worry about that since
he didn't get either of those. Let's see Paul Allen's card. Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, it even has a watermark... Okay, so in the novel we learn that Bateman,
ever the poser, wears non prescription lenses in his glasses. He might still want to get his vision check
though since the watermark, which he's worked himself into such a froth over is actually
nowhere to be seen. Is something wrong? Patrick, you're sweating. If we're being generous, we can say there
are two kinds of watermark: first is the boring one we see on screen, such as used by stock
images, which is just taking some text or an image and reducing the opacity. That's not in evidence here. Secondly, a true watermark which works in
a similar principle to embossing and debossing. Before printing anything on the surface, the
paper stock has to be completely wet. Then an image is pressed into the surface
crushing some of the paper fibres. Once dried this leaves an image which can
be seen when the sheet is held up to the light and light passes through. Except it only works when the paper is thin
enough for light to pass through, which this card clearly isn't. What we do see on the card is a typeface called
Copperplate Gothic. Despite the name, it's categorically not a
gothic, which is a subtype of sans serif font. This one is quite an unusual one. It's a display face of sorts. It has no lowercase alphabet, and it has the
tiniest little serifs. It works quite well in print and it's the
font that makes the most sense thematically with the banking industry. It was very popular through the 20th century
for professional services like banks and law firms, especially for signage, and stationery. It's the same font that's used for the opening
and closing titles of this film. It's waning in popularity in the 21st century,
partly because it lacks a lowercase alphabet, partly due to rendering less well on screen,
and also it's outdated style. It was a throwback to an older time, even
when it was designed in 1901. But let's stop and take a look at this group
as a whole. So what we can see broadly with this group
is they're all made with a printing technique called letterpress. This is a method of printing in which a raised
in plate is pressed into the printing surface, leaving a debossed impression very similar
to how pressing the stamp into a piece of bread leaves a recessed impression. How deep the deboss effect is depends on the
force of which the print is applied and the qualities of the cardstock: its thickness,
weight, bulk and rigidity. Bateman's card gives us the clearest picture
of the effect in this shot, but we also can see the impression it leaves on the reverse
side of the card on Allen's card in this shot. This is something I can speak to personally,
having worked for many years with letterpress cards and prints, though not of the business
correspondence variety. Van Patten's card is the outlier since it's
never seen isolated and close up, it's hard to see whether that deboss effect is there. Also the cardstock is the most heavily textured
of the group. So it may not have much give left in the fibres
for the recessed impression. The cards all feature a liberal use of small
caps. With Copperplate Gothic there isn't really
an option. But for the others, that's a deliberate affect. It's a typographic technique, pretty rare
to see these days partly because it's quite poor for legibility compared to lowercase,
but also because there was no way of typesetting in true small caps on the web until relatively
recently, so it fell out of use in corporate branding as it was difficult to maintain consistency
across print and online. The layout of the cards is fairly unremarkable. All four follow the same template, except
Paul Allen's card adds a line break between the address and fax number. The hierarchy of information is fine. The eye goes first to the name and title. The secondary info is the company name and
phone number. And thirdly, the other contact details. But at the heart of it the biggest problem
with this scene is that the entire premise is fundamentally flawed. Wait... stop!
Pierce and pierce is meant to be an investment bank, ala Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. We never actually see anyone doing real work
in the film and we never even see a sign for the corporate office. So it's all extremely vague. What is clear is that any Wall Street bank
worth its salt would have a very strictly enforced, and probably quite expensive, corporate
identity that would extend to include business cards. In reality, all these jerks would have the
exact same card except for the name on it. In fact, when we look at the cards, they don't
even have different contact details, the phone number, fax, and telex all match each other. Anyway, because of this scene, and the fact
that we never see any corporate signage, there is no canonical logo for Pierce & Pierce. There are at least four conflicting versions. Now it's possible that in the '80s Wall Street
bankers were free from basic things like corporate brand guidelines for stationery and would
all regularly go down to the print shop to source their stationery from scratch. Certainly American Psycho displays greater
transgressions... ...than breaking the rules of the style guide. But I don't know anyone who worked on Wall
Street in the '80s, so that is impossible to verify. But also, the author couldn't even name a
real font. I highly doubt he did extensive research into
the inner workings of corporate stationery logistics within the banking industry. Even at a stretch, if it was the case back
then it certainly isn't today. Major banks are major brands and you don't
go and print your own damn business cards. Of course, I understand that in movies, realism
sometimes takes a backseat to storytelling. Are these "great cards" worth all of this
drama? No, they're mediocre at best. But it doesn't really matter. This scene, for all it gets wrong about card
design, it gets everything right about telling the story of these characters, their motivations
and their relationships. Plus, who could deny a scene that gave us
a Broadway musical number about business cards. The lettering; Romalian. The stock; it’s eggshell white. Oh baby baby, you’re such a card. I hope you enjoy this little reaction video. Maybe you've learned a thing or two along
the way. If you want to see more content like this,
please do me a favour and click some of those YouTube buttons. It's like telling the algorithm good things
about me! For a new YouTube channel trying to get off
the ground, these things really matter, and I greatly appreciate it. Let me know in the comments if you can think
of another scene from pop culture that's focused on fonts or design that you'd like to see
me address. I feel like American Psycho must be the most
iconic, but I'm always interested to hear your suggestions. My name is Linus. I've been ranting about business cards and
I hope I'll see you in a future video.
I feel like the point about calling the premise flawed because they have different cards is missing the point of the movie? For all intents and purposes, all 4 guys have the same exact card, and all work the same superficial role (everyone is a Vice President at an investment bank), because the point of the movie is that Bateman considers himself "special" while he really isn't any different from the rest of the other Yuppies. No one remembers his name, no one remembers who Paul Allen is, they are all carbon copies of each other.
Despite that the font history is really interesting.
Hey guys, apologies if OC is frowned upon here. I've been making this kind of nerdy design content for a little while. Would love to know if anyone has other suggestions for iconic scenes that talk about design or typography! Cheers.
It's interesting to hear your knowledge and to find an excuse to watch the clips again with a keener eye, but I think you're professionalism might be getting in the way of the shtick. The whole point of the scene, and in some way of the movie, is that the players don't actually know what they're talking about, it's all a farce. Their superficiality clouds their perceptions of meaning and reinforces false positives on what life is all about. The business cards are supposed to be wrong (maybe not the spelling, but the idea that they know what any of it implies.) It's the opinion of the self that, "I'm rich and successful therefore I'm smart and a trendsetter." Hence the gravity of hierarchy for them, and the misalignment of truth and culminating drive to insanity of Bale's character. There's a chance all of his friends are serial killers too.
I watched this movie a dozen times, saw all kinds of analysis videos and several versions of this scene and I never saw they misspelled "Acquisitions"...
Great video! Any good resources or books you can share for learning more about the history of some of these typefaces?
I wonder if you couldn’t find the exact example of Garamond because the letterpress was done with genuine metal type.
But then I notice the Helvetica card is using fake small caps which is a digital artefact. So at least that card was digital in origin.
You rock man, that was awesome!!!
this scene had me fully believing his "business partners" or "friends" were all separate compartmentalized hallucinations of his personality traits. Even though they are recognized by their peers it cannot be determined that Bateman was just imagining their interactions between others considering what else he can cook up in that head of his.
They all hold the same position (not uncommon for a large firm to have several VPs), but they all share the same fax numbers, telex, phone numbers and share the same spelling mistakes.
Really enjoyed this! Excellent content.