Muriel Cooper was a pioneer in mapping the emerging terrain of graphic interface design. In Cooper's view, type and graphics were, in the new digital environment, dynamic actors that could ideally respond to the stimuli around them in what she called "programming by example." More than mere words on a page, "Cooper saw typography as a prime element for visual experimentation" as Wired magazine described it.

Cooper, who died in 1994 at age 68, was professor of visual studies at MIT and cofounded (with Ron McNeil) the Institute's Visible Language Workshop (later merged into MIT's Media Lab), which would prove to be the center of research and theory around the emerging discipline. A graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art, Cooper was a Fulbright scholar in Milan before embarking on a career in graphic design.

Cooper's work has appeared in more than 500 books, over 100 of which were recognized in various competitions. She won the second American Institute of Graphic Design Leadership Award for her work as design director of the then newly independent MIT Press.

In addition to her work at MIT, Cooper taught at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts and lectured to a wide variety of professional and educational groups at many institutions, including Cornell University, Yale University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.