diff --git a/home/bin/make_color.py b/home/bin/make_color.py
index e387d5b..8db94c9 100755
--- a/home/bin/make_color.py
+++ b/home/bin/make_color.py
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
     color_saturation = float(sys.argv[3])
     string_format = sys.argv[4]  # eg 'osx' 'linux'
     # color_hue = int(md5(seed_string).hexdigest()[:8], 16) # taken from http://www.guguncube.com/3237/python-string-to-number-hash
-    color_hue = float(int(md5(seed_string).hexdigest(), 16) % 100000) / 100000.0
+    color_hue = float(int(md5(seed_string.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest(), 16) % 100000) / 100000.0
 
     # print(color_hue)
     if string_format == 'osx':