diff --git a/client-barcode/freitagslib/encoding.py b/client-barcode/freitagslib/encoding.py
index 0c254ab..00ee211 100644
--- a/client-barcode/freitagslib/encoding.py
+++ b/client-barcode/freitagslib/encoding.py
@@ -6,7 +6,14 @@
 
 from __future__ import print_function
 
-def asciify(utf8):
+def ensure_unicode(candidate, encoding='utf-8'):
+	if isinstance(candidate, basestring) \
+			and not isinstance(candidate, unicode):
+		return unicode(candidate, encoding)
+	return candidate
+
+
+def asciify(text):
 	_mapping = (
 		('ö', 'oe'),
 		('Ö', 'Oe'),
@@ -26,7 +33,7 @@ def asciify(utf8):
 
 		return _mapping.get(ord(unichar), fix(unichar))
 
-	unichars = utf8.decode('utf-8')
+	unichars = ensure_unicode(text, 'utf-8')
 	unitext = ''.join(subst(e) for e in unichars)
 	return unitext.encode('ascii')