Creative career remix: Alumnus shapes Spotify's user experience

From the moment he took a photo class on a whim in high school, Chad Cooper ’19 MFA (visual communication design) awakened his inner creativity. 

On his way to earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he sustained an appetite for the arts. He constantly pursued job opportunities to photograph high-profile events throughout his undergraduate studies. Those positions also introduced him to the finer details of design, a discipline he quickly envisioned a future in.

It was love at first click. 

He built a design portfolio, got accepted into RIT’s visual communication design MFA program, and didn’t look back. 

Today, Cooper is a senior product designer - design systems for Spotify. He helps deliver and support the audio streaming platform’s visual look and feel for more than 600 million users. 

Cooper is responsible for making the user experience uniform across all platforms, regardless of device — from mobile to car displays to smartwatches. 

“Before coming to RIT, I was definitely a creative person,” Cooper said. “But once I showed up on campus, I was able to take this idea of being a creative and turn it into a full-on career.”

Right after graduating with his MFA degree from RIT, Cooper was a product designer at online pet product retailer Chewy. He was the sole designer of the company’s Android app for more than three million users. 

He eventually became principal product designer - design systems at GameStop before settling into his current role at Spotify. 

As a creative professional, Cooper learned effective communication and partnership is paramount to striking the right balance on a multidisciplinary team.

“At RIT, I learned how to become a good collaborator and partner with product and engineering colleagues,” Cooper said. “I like to think of the UX/UI industry as a three-legged stool. If an organization prioritizes just product and engineering, the stool will tip over. When we incorporate design into the mix, we build a strong-standing stool — or in this case — a well-designed and well-engineered product.”

Cooper thrived in his graduate studies at RIT due to, in part, the program’s intensive nature encouraging him to imitate the industry and treat projects like real-world situations. 

“One of the most influential parts of my degree was the breadth of coursework,” Cooper said. “Approaching class projects like they were real clients helped strengthen my time-management skills in order to get deliverables done. Studio critiques taught me how to optimize my workflows and how to efficiently iterate in professional environments. Learning how to proficiently meet stakeholder needs and support multiple projects has paid off in dividends.”

Cooper also credits the program with supplying the requisite resources and training to place him on a creative career path.  

“The MFA gave me the space and focus I needed to become the designer I wanted to be,” Cooper said. “If I didn’t attend RIT, I think I’d probably still be hustling it out, trying to get design gigs here and there. Having those two years on campus changed my trajectory, big time.”