Grus was created by Seth Labenz and Roy Rub of Topos Graphics in 2009. Seth and Roy were inspired to create Grus by the Japanese tradition of giving a Senbazuru — a thousand paper cranes held together by string. This tradition is based on an ancient Japanese legend that promises a wish by a crane to anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes. It was designed to be a display typeface, ideal for rendering words worth 1,000 cranes.