News / Graphic Design

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

Words by Lucy Bourton, Friday 13 April 2018

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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.”

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