Rachel Matts

Adjunct Instructor

Rachel Matts is an award-winning graphic designer and creative director based in New York City. She is particularly interested in designing systems so that they are accessible and visually compelling—whether it’s a brand, a campaign, a digital experience, a packaging suite, a toolkit, or something entirely new. She has worked with clients like AIGA, Design Trust for Public Space, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Google, Heineken, MoMA, Plum Organics, TED, Uncommon Goods, and W. W. Norton & Company. Rachel received her BFA from The Cooper Union in 2009. She previously worked at Ogilvy & Mather, Number 17, Johnson & Johnson Design, The School of Visual Arts, and Kiss Me I’m Polish. Since 2018, Rachel has worked at Madwell, a multidisciplinary agency (that’s not really an agency) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She has taught Graphic Design at her alma mater since 2021. One of her proudest achievements is being described as “a purple-haired Leslie Knope.”

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.