MURIEL COOPER

Muriel Cooper had two design careers: first as a print designer and second as a impactful digital designer. She was the art director for MIT Press, where she designed classic books such as Hans Wingler’s Bauhaus. She also designed the first edition of Learning from Las Vegas. The book's authors Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour hated what she produced, but many graphic designers appreciated and loved it.

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Cooper enrolled in her first computer class at MIT in 1967, and it fascinated her. She could see the computer’s potential in the creative process, and soon began the second phase of her career: applying her design skills to computer screens. With Ron MacNeil, Cooper co-founded the research group Visible Language Workshop in 1975, which later became part of MIT’s Media Lab. Cooper didn’t write code; she was the designer and the thinker. She encouraged her students to use technology to present well-designed information.

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Cooper presented the group’s research at the influential TED5 (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in 1994. For the first time, computer graphics were shown in three transparent dimensions, which moved, changed sizes, and shifted focus, instead of the standard Windows interface of opaque panels stacked like cards. She made a big impact and even Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft was interested in her work. Sadly, Muriel Cooper passed away suddenly soon after, but her legacy in interactive design lives on. At the time of her death, she was still a full-time professor and was the first and only female tenured professor in the MIT Media Lab. Following her death, an exhibition at the Media Lab was curated to review her life and career. In 1997, the Design Management Institute established a prize in her name that "honors an individual who, like Muriel herself, challenges our understanding and experience of interactive digital communication"