diff --git a/Lib/gftools/utils.py b/Lib/gftools/utils.py
index a29f06375..b3c168821 100644
--- a/Lib/gftools/utils.py
+++ b/Lib/gftools/utils.py
@@ -504,8 +504,3 @@ def read_proto(fp, schema):
     with open(fp, "rb") as f:
         data = text_format.Parse(f.read(), schema)
     return data
-
-
-def strip_accents(string):
-    """Remove accents from a string e.g 'àce' --> 'ace'"""
-    return "".join([uni.normalize("NFD", x)[0] for x in string])
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/bin/gftools-add-designer.py b/bin/gftools-add-designer.py
index 3b1c282ab..5e456a6c2 100755
--- a/bin/gftools-add-designer.py
+++ b/bin/gftools-add-designer.py
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 from gftools.designers_pb2 import DesignerInfoProto
 from google.protobuf import text_format
 from pandas.core.base import PandasObject
-from gftools.utils import strip_accents
+from unidecode import unidecode
 
 
 def process_image(fp):
@@ -110,8 +110,8 @@ def make_designer(
     bio=None,
     urls=None,
 ):
-    designer_dir_name = strip_accents(
-        name.lower().replace(" ", "").replace("-", "")
+    designer_dir_name = unidecode(
+        name.lower().replace(" ", "").replace("-", ""), "strict",
     )
     designer_dir = os.path.join(designer_directory, designer_dir_name)
     if not os.path.isdir(designer_dir):
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 83c8b1a9b..68efd3415 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -23,3 +23,4 @@ skia-pathops
 pandas
 xlrd
 openpyxl
+unicdecode
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 99589ea55..b32302a2a 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -102,5 +102,6 @@ def gftools_scripts():
         'pandas',
         'xlrd',
         'openpyxl',
+        'unidecode',
     ]
     )