American Psycho Font: Copperplate, Titles and the Business-Card Scene

In their Art of the Title interview, director Mary Harron confirms Copperplate and credits production designer Gideon Ponte with finding it. Title designer Marlene McCarty identifies Copperplate Gothic, explaining that it supported their reference to 1980s wealth and power. She describes the credit grid as loosely based on vertical thirds of the screen. This is a direct attribution for the opening’s typography rather than a visual-match guess.

The interview discusses the same face appearing later in the business-card scene, and Harron confirms the callback. Its accompanying example identifies Paul Allen’s card as Copperplate Gothic. That does not establish one font for every colleague’s card, nor turn the dialogue’s names for other lettering into reliable retail family names. Use the person and the exact prop as part of an identification request rather than treating the whole scene as one font sample.

Use fictional details and set a name, role, company and contact line before choosing paper colour or decorative effects. Compare whether the role remains subordinate to the name without becoming too small. Leave consistent margins and print at actual card size. Test the longest email address and phone number early, since these details can expose spacing problems that a short sample name conceals.

Use your own name and invented production role on a simple title card. Try placing the block above, beside and below the visual centre while keeping the internal spacing consistent. Judge the composition without adding a photographic background first. Cinzel, Cormorant Garamond and Source Sans 3 are independent comparison specimens, not Copperplate Gothic files or exact recreations of the film’s props.