vulnerably-borrowed from handwritten letters and notes, nicolas damiens and julien sens have converted the handwriting of david bowie, kurt cobain, john lennon, leonard cohen, and serge gainsbourg, into free typefaces that you can download in the link below. it’s humbling, using written language in such a way — especially in the case of cobain; some of the nuances in his handwriting — lazy c’s and tiny i’s — came directly from the words he scratched in his suicide letter.



all images courtesy of nicolas damiens and julien sens

lennon’s handwriting is organized; bowie’s is graphic; cohen’s has style; but there is something magnetic about kurt’s. kurt cobain formed nirvana in 1987, drawing inspiration from punk, blues and heavy metal, to create his own musical universe. at the time, we called it grunge. tortured, poetic — his writing profoundly affected a generation. here, designers nicolas damiens and julien sens analyze his writing from a purely visual perspective.

kurt’s longhand is scratchy, thin, sometimes small and uneven. he wasn’t afraid to bolden words, scratch them out, or exchange them for symbols more honest. kurt’s is an honest handwriting all around, both tortured and poetic. it looks the way his music sounds. using this typeface, experiencing your own thoughts, as if cobain wrote them: there’s something sad, but poetic about that too. what do you think of the others?