Get to know our faculty through this ongoing series. This month, we interviewed Dr. Craig Eliason, Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History.

What area of art history/architectural history did you focus on in graduate school? And where did you go?

I studied modern European and American art at Rutgers. My dissertation was on a Dutch avant-gardist and the relationship between the Dada and Constructivist movements in the 1920s.

And what area do you focus on now? Give one factoid everyone should know about that area.

My research area is the history of typography and type design. I have also become a practicing type designer.

Factoid: Good type design requires a thorough understanding of optical illusions. For example, a horizontal stroke will look thicker to the human eye than a vertical stroke of the same mathematical width. And if that horizontal stroke is intended to be read as centered, it should be slightly above mathematical center. See the H of Helvetica Neue Bold on the right, which appears more graceful than the geometrically “correct” H on the left.

Best advice you have ever received? 

For undertaking and presenting research, the advice given in the book “The Craft of Research” is fantastic. Its authors are excellent at explaining how to mount a scholarly argument. My best friend from college introduced me to the book when we were both writing our dissertations.

If you weren’t a professor, what would you do and why?

I would probably be a full-time type designer. And/or a craft-cocktail bartender.