Renowned designer, author, critic, co-chair of SVA’s MFA program in design and National Design Award recipient Steven Heller reaches into the most contemplative recesses of his mind to offer an entertaining new collection of ruminations on the nature and future of design. In Design Cult—the first of a series of three titles published exclusively as e-books through the DesignFile consortium—Heller expounds on such disparate topics as Milton Glaser, Japanese masks, velvet touch lettering, anthropomorphism and people in glass apartments.

DesignFile is the new line of e-books on topics and trends in design published by the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. There will be six to twelve titles published annually, each ranging in length from 7,500 to 20,000 words. Building a consortium with institutional partners and design practitioners, Cooper-Hewitt's series will bridge the academic, museum, design, and publishing worlds. Inaugural members of the e-book consortium are Parsons The New School for Design and the School of Visual Arts.