Muriel Cooper

Muriel Cooper
Born	1925
Died	May 26, 1994 Boston, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Education	Massachusetts College of Art and Design Ohio State University
Known for	Graphic design
Awards	1994 AIGA Medal

Muriel Cooper (1925 – May 26, 1994) was a pioneering book designer, digital designer, researcher, and educator. She was the longtime art director of the MIT Press, instilling a Bauhaus-influenced design style into its many publications. She moved on to become founder of MIT's Visible Language Workshop, and later became a co-founder of the MIT Media Lab. In 2007, a New York Times article called her "the design heroine you've probably never heard of".

Cooper received her BA from Ohio State in 1944, and a BFA in design in 1948 and a BS in education in 1951 from Massachusetts College of Art. After her graduation, Cooper moved to New York City and attempted to find a position in advertising. She met Paul Rand, who was influential to her design "way of life".

In 1952, Cooper became a freelance designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office of Publications, which eventually would become MIT Press. There, she collaborated with Gyorgy Kepes, professor of visual design at MIT and former colleague of artist László Moholy-Nagy in Hungary. She soon was appointed to head the Office, newly renamed to Design Services, which was one of the first university design programs in the country.

In 1955, Cooper recruited graphic designer and fellow MassArt alumna Jacqueline Casey to her own lengthy career at MIT, where Casey designed many posters and smaller publications in a modernist style. Cooper and Casey, along with Ralph Coburn and Dietmar Winkler, would be influential in bringing modern Swiss-style typography to MIT Press and to the related magazine that would become MIT Technology Review.

After working at MIT for six years, Cooper left in 1958 to take a Fulbright Scholarship in Milan, where she studied exhibition design.

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