Songwriters Fonts instructed to shut down due to intellectual property legal issues

Following our story on typography platform Songwriters Fonts, which launched earlier this week, founders graphic designer Nicolas Damiens and copywriter Julien Sans have been instructed to close the project down.
The platform is a free font library which digitises the handwriting of iconic songwriters such as John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Serge Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen and David Bowie to be downloaded for personal use, but the “unexpected success” of the platform has led to legal issues.
In a statement Julien and Nicolas said: “We’ve launched the Songwriters Fonts project, a series of typefaces created from famous songwriters’ handwritings, as a design project. The unique purpose of this was to inspire musicians and the next generation of songwriters to put their imagination at work.”
After many articles about the project this week cropped up in all corners of the web, the pair explain they have “been contacted by intellectual property rights owners, and are sad to announce that we have shut down this website because of legal issues. We’re sorry to have to say goodbye.”
- National Geographic’s creative director Emmet Smith on the publication’s redesign
- Leon Mark’s refined and infinitely stylish photography
- Sophie Harris-Taylor shares anecdotes and insights from her photo series, Sisters
- Designer Anatole Couteau's technical approach lets him communicate simply and precisely
- A peek inside Hicham Amrani's trippy new comic Svend & Xanax
- Friday Mixtape: The Orielles mix for "good times with good people"
- Pentagram rebrands Battersea dogs and cats home to visualise "personality over sentiment"
- Craig Oldham dishes out brutally honest advice to new graphic designers
- ManvsMachine create its most ambitious campaign for Air Max Day yet
- V&A announces shortlist for its Illustration Awards 2018
- Ten examples of rare letterings, from 19th-century alphabets to preliminary drawings of Futura
- Bad week for art world as Jeff Koons piece is smashed and imitation Happy Meal thrown away