ISTD 2017 

Banned Books:

American Psycho

After investigation into the book and the author it became clear that I wanted the final piece to give the reader a sense of unknown, in that the reader wouldn’t necessarily know whether the character of Patrick Bateman had truly committed all that he had described. This would give a sense of double perspective, and to achieve this I wanted to show through the typography the hollowness of Bateman’s lifestyle, his distorted perspective, his sense of importance or hierarchy, but also this structured clean shaven exterior that he displays.

To do this I chose the chapter ‘Killing Child at Zoo’, as it is at a stage where Bateman is struggling to contain his inner behaviour and more than usual is beginning to lash out, but doing so without leaving a trace. The idea behind the final piece is that the reader through very little or minimal gestures will get lost in Bateman’s at the beginning subtle insanity but as the reader drifts into his madness so does the text, be it through spacing, negative space, distortion, or hierarchy. There is no chapter numbers or page numbers as I thought it was best if the reader was truly lost in Bateman’s insanity, therefore the reader doesn’t know when it’ll all end or where the middle is.