diff --git a/album-collage-generator.php b/album-collage-generator.php
index 212f29e..e31847b 100644
--- a/album-collage-generator.php
+++ b/album-collage-generator.php
@@ -329,7 +329,11 @@ class AlbumCollageGenerator {
         $group_spacing = 50;
     
         for ($i = 0; $i < min(count($albums), 25); $i++) {
-            $album_text = $albums[$i]->author . ' - ' . $albums[$i]->album_name;
+            // Normalize album and author names to replace weird characters
+            $normalized_author = $this->normalize_text($albums[$i]->author);
+            $normalized_album = $this->normalize_text($albums[$i]->album_name);
+            $album_text = "{$normalized_author} - {$normalized_album}";
+            
             $font = $this->is_japanese($album_text) ? $this->japanese_font : $this->western_font;
             
             $this->add_retro_text($image, $font_size, $text_x, $text_y, $text_color, $font, $album_text);
@@ -351,6 +355,30 @@ class AlbumCollageGenerator {
         return $image_data;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Normalize text by replacing accented or special characters with standard ones.
+     *
+     * @param string $text The input text to normalize.
+     * @return string The normalized text.
+     */
+    private function normalize_text($text) {
+        // Check if the intl extension is loaded
+        if (class_exists('Transliterator')) {
+            $transliterator = \Transliterator::create('NFD; [:Nonspacing Mark:] Remove; NFC;');
+            if ($transliterator) {
+                $text = $transliterator->transliterate($text);
+            }
+        } else {
+            // Fallback to iconv if intl is not available
+            $text = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT//IGNORE', $text);
+        }
+
+        // Replace any remaining non-ASCII characters
+        $text = preg_replace('/[^\x20-\x7E]/', '', $text);
+
+        return $text;
+    }
+
     private function apply_retro_effects(&$image) {
         // Add noise
         $this->add_noise($image, 20);
@@ -526,4 +554,4 @@ class AlbumCollageGenerator {
 
 }
 
-new AlbumCollageGenerator();
+new AlbumCollageGenerator();
\ No newline at end of file