Muriel Cooper (1925-1994), a visionary instructor and designer at MIT, developed an extraordinary––and at the time, largely unsung––influence on contemporary culture, technology, and architecture over her four-decade tenure. She pioneered modern styles, approaches, and strategies for graphic design within the evolving framework of the display screen and trained a new generation of artists who have revolutionized our visual culture in her roles as chief designer at MIT Press, cofounder of the Visible Language Workshop at MIT, and cofounder of the MIT Media Lab later.

She designed the MIT Press colophon (or logo), which consists of seven bars that reflect the lowercase characters “mitp” as abstracted books on a rack. Also, she created the encyclopedic volume The Bauhaus (1969), as well as the graphically stunning and divisive first edition of Learning from Las Vegas (1972). Cooper’s time at MIT corresponds to one of the most diverse phases in the school’s technological, intellectual, and theoretical growth, spanning the transition from print to early explorations of digital typography to fully
developed information environments.

Muriel Cooper was born in 1925 and graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1944 and completed Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in architecture in 1948. She then moved on to Massachusetts College of Art, where she received a bachelor’s degree. Cooper moved to New York City in the hopes of getting a career in advertising after her long stay in academia, and she happened to come in contact with renowned graphic designer Paul Rand, who became one of her most significant design influences, serving as a source of inspiration for her design theory. She worked at MIT for the majority of her career. She began her profession as a designer at the Office of Publications in the mid-1950s, and by the mid-1960s, she had been the first Production Director at the MIT Press. She established the Visible Language Workshop in the Department of Architecture at MIT in the mid-’70s, where she conducted experimental printing and hands-on development. She was also a founding member of the MIT Media Lab in the mid-80s, developing early programming interfaces.

She experimented with a large-format Polaroid camera and had an early view of e-books, using an offset press as a creative medium. Cooper’s daring was an inspiration to students like Strausfeld and John Maeda, the legendary artist who succeeded her at the MIT Media Lab. During the 1970s and 1980s, when computers were progressing so quickly that software developers had to create - and then revise - their own design rules. Cooper considered typography to be a crucial component of graphic experimentation. The workshop’s staff and students created a variety of techniques to construct a form that reacts to its surroundings and meaning. There is a kind of watercolour that reacts to virtual paper based on the paper’s fibers and pigment, gravity, and the amount of water added. Cooper allowed her students to adopt techniques from other sources, such as using pull focus, a tactic for drawing the reader’s eye by blurring less relevant form and putting other forms into focus.

Muriel Cooper died in 1994, when the internet was just getting started. Nonetheless, some of her most innovative work explored 3D dreams in cyberspace by splitting two-dimensional planes of architecture. She took massive strides forward, attracting the attention of Bill Gates. Her efforts have been characterized as “epic,” and she has revolutionized the way the design community thinks of typography. Cooper was lauded in Wired magazine, and the Design Management Institute created an award in her honor in 1997 to honor those who “challenge our understanding and experience of interactive
digital communication.”

Some brainstorming map of the themes and the development of the title for the borchure created using MIRO application.

Below are the tested layout ideas which was created in consideration of the overall grid structure, hierarchy and image placement of the brochure.

Below are the design for the first reveal page and the third reveal page. The main idea for this design is to express vintage vibe pairing together with the history of Muriel Cooper by creating multiple polygon, hexagon was placed in the middle of the design along with pictures of Muriel Cooper in the hexagon to make sure that it is eyecatching and grabs the attention of the people when they are looking at the brochure for the first time. Next, the background of the colour is green but the colour was lighten out with the reducing of opacity in order to contrast the wordings and also to reduce the colour tone to make sure that the pairing of the coulour does not to powerful which will affect the overall readability of the brochure. Meanwhile, the colour for title font as well as the pull-quote was bright pink and the name font used was Voltage which the style of the font can represents the classy and old-school vibe of the overall brochure design.

The main idea for this second reveal page is connection of multiple hexagon that looks like a bee hive which can also indicate the life journey of Muriel Copper. The pictures includes Muriel Cooper’s picture of her working with her collegues along with some works and designs done by her. The bright pink line stretched done is to showcase each stages of life that Muriel Cooper have gone through in which beside the line will have the detailed explaination of her journey. This is aim to introduce how, when and why Muriel Cooper go through the challenges which made who she is now.

Below are the final outcome of the developed brochure which was presented in the form of first reveal, second reveal and third reveal.

Throughout the process of designing the brochure, I have use the combination of typeface
Voltage Regular and FreightSans Pro Regular with multiple of Muriel Cooper’s significant
works such as mechanical artwork for the MIT Press colophon. I firstly settled the theme
“Vintage “ after doing all the researches because it is the best theme that suit to the theme of my brochure. Then, multiple polygon were created and inserted with Muriel Cooper’s picture as the main content in the cover page and the first reveal page.

For cover, the upper part of the picture will be the title that comes with a shadow that was
created with another layer but lower opacity in order to make the effect, followed by pullquote inserted below the picture which indicates words said by Cooper For the back cover, I inserted two polygon shape as the main content which includes the references used as well as the burgher imprint. Frr first reveal page also includes a picture but with explaination at both upper and bottom part of it.

Proceed to the second reveal pages, I create multiple polygon that forms a beehive design. I wisely used the opacity of the colour which becomes lighter then duplicate few more polygon needed for the design inserted with two different colour and opacity. I then combine the edited shape layer which makes it become another layer to create the worn-out effect. I proceed to insert the pictures and colours to each specific layers. Moving on, I create few lines below the pictures that comes along with detailed explaination of that particular picture that was filled with bright colour that provides a great readability.

From this brochure development, I have learnt that the choices of typeface will directly
affect the appearance and visual of the brochure as people tend to make a decision at a glance, hence, it is important to choose a proper typeface. Besides, the arrangement also important to a brochure because it can influence the display of content and directly affect readers’ reading experience. Therefore, the alignment as well as the arrangement of the content need to be taken care of after a careful consideration.