Howdy! I’m Erica, a Senior Product Designer with 8+ years of experience designing products across SaaS, B2C, enterprise AI, EdTech, and more.
I'm always up for a good design challenge, especially during the messy early stage of a product when the real question is what should exist and why. I care deeply about the details when it matters most and love to iterate quickly. I'm comfortable shipping fast, carrying the work into code when I can. Creating usable, helpful, and beautiful software alongside some of the most talented teams in the world is why I do what I do <3
I run Baked Potato Studio, working with clients big and small on everything from product to brand. Previously, I spent nearly five years at Marie Forleo International, growing from junior to Lead Designer and helping launch multi-million-dollar programs. ANd once upon a time, I also bootstrapped my own volleyball ecommerce brand, which taught me to think like a designer, founder, and builder all at once.
These days, I’m happiest somewhere between Figma and a CLI. I'm designing products and building with coding agents to take an idea as far as it can go. I also mentor designers across the world on ADPList.
If you’re hiring or just want to talk very nerdy design things, say howdy on LinkedIn or shoot me an email!
Some other fun facts about me ^_^
- I play cello and piano
- Former NCAA Division I volleyball player (libero)
- I love cheese and baked potatoes *shocker *
- Soft spot for open-world RPGs (RDR2 is my #1)
What Y'all Think
"Working with Erica has been SO seamless. Her expertise, skill and execution is unparalleled and I’d highly recommend her to anyone!"
Founder, Creative Director | Saevil Row
And a big time kudos to @Erica Lakata for jumping in and knocking the designs out. Little things often go unnoticed, so I want to call out her detailed work, which made it "easy" to go from canvas-to-code. She took the time to label everything. To set a clear design system. Skipping this is easy. She didn't. So thank you 🙌🙇
What sets Erica apart is her ability to balance creativity with business goals. Every layout, visual choice, and interaction is intentional and optimized to support the end objective, whether that’s clarity, engagement, or conversion. She’s highly collaborative, thoughtful, and ego-free — always focused on getting to the strongest possible outcome. She welcomes feedback, iterates intelligently, and makes the process genuinely enjoyable.
Senior Copywriter & Content Strategist
"Erica is the most talented designer working today. Creative, collaborative and fun to be around? She's the total package...the most talented b*tch in the world."
Author of A Little Less Broken
@Erica Lakata just wanted to say it was so fun getting to work together on the Google Gemini project. Was super impressed by how solid your design skills were, it made the development process so much easier!
"NEXT. LEVEL... The few things you've done already have helped the business look super professional."
Founder and CEO of BKU Digital Agency
"Erica's attention to detail, especially when it comes to user research, is unmatched. She really took the time to understand our customer base and deliver a product strategy that increased our numbers across the board."
Founder and CEO of Mirage
"Erica's design expertise and professionalism is excellent. Equally, she does a great job keeping the collaborative process fun by bringing her sense of humor to the table. The team thoroughly enjoyed working with her!"
Enterprise Account Executive, Sonar
"We LOVE working with Erica on all of our projects. She always offers a unique perspective that creates quality results."
VP of Project Mangement, SCGE, Inc.
"Not only is Erica an excellent designer, she also has the personality you'll want to work with again and again. She was able to translate our legal needs into easy, scalable tools used across our firm."
Attorney | L&L PLLC
"The quality and efficiency Erica brought to the table was dope. She helped my team and I go from start-to-launch, even going above and beyond to provide marketing strategies we could implement in the future. I've already recommended her to a ton of other folks in the industry!"
DJ & Producer
