I’m Zoe Lauren Minikes. I believe in people, and I like to dance. I’m a design director, social practice artist, and an eternal student oriented toward care for people and planet. I combine rigor and spirit to create products, brands, experiences, and artworks that are full of life and exquisitely detailed. I’m the Digital Design Lead for the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, helping to bring Charles and Ray Eames’ philosophy of serious play to life through our collections, places, and a new museum on the old Birkenstock campus.

Previously, I served as Director of Design for Artists & Labels at Bandcamp, a place for people who love independent music to directly support the people who make it. There, I led the development of artist-facing features and spearheaded our accessibility, design system, and brand efforts.

I founded and serve as Editor-in-Chief for Flower Press, an equitable publishing practice centering historically marginalized artists, authors, and practitioners. We publish books, zines, memoirs, poetry, newspapers, research, and more.

In 2025, I joined the Eames Institute as their Digital Design Lead, crafting our brand and systems across multiple surfaces. I led the launch of our Membership program, a comprehensive redesign and rebrand of our editorial platform, and designed and implemented a scalable information architecture. After hours, I collaborated as a designer with individuals and organizations advancing a more just world, including Sidewalk Detroit and People in Education. I also oriented Flower Press toward climate-related works and published Jacqueline Suskin’s The Verse for Now, learned to play the harp, and started Friendship Studies to unpack the importance of our deep connections to one another.

In 2024, I joined Inzovu, a collective of stellar designers and researchers working to solve institutional and organizational challenges, supported a 100-year-old aquarium in becoming more accessible to their guests, led small sustainability-focused businesses through brand strategy processes, helped envision a new way to bring music to life, spoke about the future of publishing at the Mid America Print Council, and opened myself up to new opportunities in spaces like climate resilience, education, music, arts & culture, tech equity, mental health, community wellness, and affordable housing.

In 2023, I helped guide brilliant teams at Bandcamp as they launched Listening Parties and Playlists, Flower Press published stunning new work, I completed a residency at Salmon Creek Farm, I taught myself to play piano (slowly, gingerly) in a Covid-induced haze, I made and released my first solo tunes, I wrote a joke book about birds, I drew so many hearts. I also learned a lot about grief, about the importance of good friendship, about myself. I rode my bicycle through France, I drove across the country, I went to a rodeo on the fourth of July, I saw fireworks and watched them fizzle out. I wrote poems, songs, reflections, investigated new paths.

In 2022, I collaborated with Cyrah Dardas to present Accessing Queer Sanctuary through Printed Media & Digital Realms at the Allied Media Conference. Flower Press published several ambitious works, including Care Manual by Kamra Hakim. We participated in the Brooklyn and Detroit Art Book Fairs, as well as several pop-ups. I also spent a month in Paris eating, resting, walking, looking, and gleaning inspiration from community infrastructure and independent bookstores.

In 2021, I learned to throw pots, mugs, bowls, and more at Ceramics School. Flower Press published nine new titles and participated in three art book fairs and numerous pop-up events. I also fell head over heels with roller skating (and, incidentally, fell head over heels a lot).

In 2020, I focused on supporting my neighbors, friends, and community. My team and I released Bandcamp Live. Flower Press grew, publishing media for liberation and joy, ranging from poetry to plants. You can read more here. Before the pandemic, I participated in the first inaugural Sou’wester Arts Week, a convening of 30 artists completing week-long residencies on the grounds of the historic Sou’wester Lodge.

In 2019, I started Flower Press. We debuted work at the Detroit Art Book Fair and the Chicago Art Book Fair and organized a small holiday fair for Ochre Bakery. At the beginning of the year, I worked with Blue Sky Center, Corbin LaMont, and two stellar local women to pilot a taco truck in New Cuyama, California. As winter turned to spring, my collective Homeboat and I did some renovation and community programming at the Yes! House in Granite Falls, Minnesota. Over the summer, Homeboat hosted Beach Blanket Babylon, a three-day summit on peripheral practice in Green River, Utah. Later, Christine Hucal and I put on Golem, a multi-sensory dinner of wild and foraged delights in a garden. In the fall, I participated in Ellipsis Open School, a community-based pedagogical residency situated in the Algarve.

In 2018, I got to know people and places with Homeboat in Southwest Minnesota, hosted The Changing Times in a one month residency which culminated in a newspaper issue about Detroit, completed a residency at The Sanctuary in Arcata, California, made dinner for thirty writers in a garden for Room Project, and cooked for fifty designers, researchers, organizers, and artists in a very large bubble at SPACE SPACE SPACE.

In 2017, I was a co-conspirator in Peace Meal Kitchen, a co-organizer of the Detroit Kite Festival, a co-founder of the Detroit Pop-up Alliance, and a collaborator with The Work Department.

In 2016, I completed Field Work, a research road trip focused on exploring community food systems and alternative community infrastructure across our great big nation. Along the way, I fell in love with Detroit and moved there.

Before that, I was a UX designer at Google making entertainment apps more useful, beautiful, and accessible to listen to, read, watch, and play for a billion people.

Meanwhile, I started Victory Kitchen, a community resource center focused on shared meal experiences, personal growth through creative expression, and direct community service.

Previously, I worked with nonprofits, NGOs, local businesses, educational institutions, arts organizations, cities, corporations, and bright individuals at Tomorrow Partners.

Before, after, and in between, I’ve done other things with design, food, friends, community, classrooms, and more.

SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Eames Institute — Digital Design Lead
Bandcamp — Design Director
Flower Press — Founder
Homeboat — Crew Member
Google — User Experience Designer
Airbnb — Brand Designer
Tomorrow Partners — Designer
Full C.V.

Cheesing euro-style

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Flower Press

It’s the , and the digital sky is smiling on you.