Ulrika Hellberg Grez is a new typeface by Ulrika Hellberg created entirely from shapes cut out in black paper. It is a typeface made by hand, with the full functionality of a modern digital font.
With a residency grant Ulrika spent two weeks in Grez-sur-Loing, a small village close to Paris, with a history as an international artists’ colony. “I started out without a clear plan, making classical drawings by the river. In the evenings I would watch Glyphs tutorials. At one point, I started cutting out letterforms from paper. It worked best with black paper, but since I didn’t bring any, I painted white paper with black acrylic. I put together an alphabet from A to Z that I collected in my notebook. To guide my process I set up two rules. 1. Paper, scissors and glue stick to be used only (no sketching or use of ruler). 2. No shapes to be drawn directly in Glyphs.”
The typeface is one-case, one weight. Each character has four different alternatives. It has extensive language support as well as ligatures, mathematical signs, currencies and other special characters. It has a randomized feature that can be activated in OpenType.