The Handwritings of Kurt Cobain, David Bowie and John Lennon Are Now Downloadable Fonts

There’s something viscerally personal about the handwriting of musical greats, whether its their feverishly scribbled drafts of lyrics or their introspective letters to peers and loved ones.

Now the handwritings of five modern musical icons—Kurt Cobain, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg—has been turned into downloadable fonts aimed at inspiring today’s poets and songwriters. The usage is limited to personal, meaning brands won’t be able to leverage the lettering styles for profit, though some will likely still feel the concept goes against the grain of individual expression.

UPDATE: Shortly after this article was published, the font site was taken down by the creators under pressure from unspecified intellectual rights owners involved with the singers’ estates. See below for samples from the font collections and, at the bottom of this post, a note from the creators.

The fonts are a side-project creation of two French creatives now working at JWT New York: design director Nicolas Damiens and creative director Julien Sens.

“The Songwriters fonts have been created to give musicians inspiration,” the duo writes on SongwritersFonts.com. “Writing lyrics with the handwriting of influential songwriters helps imagination to develop. Being in the mood of Bowie, Cobain, Cohen, Gainsbourg, Lennon, might be purely imaginative … but that’s precisely the point.”

The Kurt Font

The David Font

The John Font

The Leonard Font

The Serge Font

The following note from font creators Damiens and Sens was posted after the site was unpublished:

David Griner

@griner

David Griner is creative and innovation editor for Adweek. He's been covering agencies, creativity, technology and marketing innovation for more than a decade and is host of Adweek's podcast.