Wednesday, October 19, 2011

American Psycho Business Cards in Latex

I recently tried to find a latex business card template that was similar in design to the cards seen in American Psycho.  I thought Patrick Bateman was the easiest non-Gordon Gekko face saving costume for those Halloween parties, where you are not sure if a costume is required.  Because I can explain to my boss why I am carrying a chain saw in my Valentino suit, but not why I am dressed as Frankenstein's monster.  I was disappointed that no one had posted a template, but extremely happy for a chance to be the first.  I started by borrowing a simple latex business card template from Mike Elery's website.  After playing with the alignment and fonts I was able to create a decent Patrick Bateman card.



Image from vaultofthebankrobber.blogspot.com


It was disappointing to discover that there was no Silian Rail font and no accepted RGB or CMYK of bone color.  The latex font called Palatino, in my opinion, is the closest matching font to Silian Rail.  Since ivory is a bone, I used a ivory background.  

The only deviation from the movie prop is my correct spelling of 'Acquisition.'  A misspelling I did not notice before my attempt to replicate the card.  I think this misspelling was necessary to create the perfect alignment with the company name, which cannot be done simply by shrinking the font or adjusting the letter spacing.  It does add an extra symbolic metaphor that gives me a greater appreciation for the movie.

The PDF output was designed for the business card paper I bought on sale.  If anyone needs to change the output to Avery's brand paper or any other sizing just leave a comment for help.

For fun here is Bateman's Mr. Hyde version of his business card.




Here is the tex sourcefile.