Jade Joyner, an interior designer and founder of Metal + Petal, knows that a small town in the American South can feel constraining. That’s part of the reason she chose to stretch her modern-traditionalist design studio between Athens and Charleston, South Carolina. While she’s based in the Southeast, her studio incorporates design elements from different countries, cultures and coasts. Joyner reflects on her style evolution and retail ventures in a fond conversation about her life in design.

Q: Where do you get the inspiration for your designs?

A: I grew up mostly in Europe. Most of my life, I lived overseas, and then when I was very young, I moved from the South to California and that really started changing my perspective on everything. Europe has a great history to it, so I try to bring in history and vintage pieces and things that have age and character in my spaces. I would say that my travels are really how I draw a lot of my inspiration, and even now it's super important for me to be always traveling, not just in the studio or in Athens, but traveling so that I can see different cultures and experience different things.

Q: In your own words, how would you describe your style?

A: Our style at Metal + Petal is modern traditionalist. I like a traditional backdrop with contemporary pieces mixed in, I don't prefer homes that are super modern and cold. I like to have a little bit of warmth in the spaces that we design.

Q: Do you ever find it difficult to incorporate traditional or historical aspects in your home design?

A: “Absolutely. The first challenge in design that I have is ... how can I say this? Having people understand where I'm coming from. So really telling them the story of design there. Americans specifically are used to fast fashion and fast design. When you do something like I do, it takes time. It's very bespoke, and so you have to convince them that waiting on that vintage piece or waiting on that amazing find from a store that they've never been to will be worth the $14,000 that they're gonna spend on (the item). The biggest challenge is getting them to understand that those pieces make a room.”

Q: What do you typically do in the store and with your business to embrace seasonal trends?

A: “I'm definitely not a pumpkin spice kind of girl.. no offense to anyone who is. We kind of look for something that's a little more avant-garde or a little outside the norm. You can see in the store that we've done a fall display that's used a lot of dried elements. Layering your homes, adding in more warm colors, kind of going for that maximalist approach. That's what I do for fall. It’s fun, but you don’t have to do it in a cliché kind of way. You can be inspired by nature and bring that in. One of my favorite fall things to do is you can just go outside to your yard or a tree and get some limbs and put them in a beautiful vase, and you've got that fresh look.”

Q: You use a lot of statement walls and different patterns. How do you balance that in a space?

A: “It’s interesting, when I first started out, I was really into the focal walls of wallpaper, and now I'm much more into encompassing a room in pattern. How do I balance bold with not-so-crazy? The scale of the fabric, the scale of the wallpaper, making sure there's not a clash there, but that it's all working together. I’ll tell you, it's one of the most difficult things I've ever taught because for me it's more of an instinct. I can look at something and I know if it's right or wrong, but for a lot of designers, they don't know how to pattern play. It's very challenging.”

Q: How do you go about deciding the store layout? What’s your organizational process?

A: “Retail's relatively new to me. The first time we opened our store, it was so curated that no one wanted to buy anything. So, when we designed it and laid it out, I wanted it to be sectioned as categories, but I also wanted to be an experience so that when you walked in, you immediately felt that this was a different place in Athens. You immediately had that experience. My main goal is that you walk in and that you're carried through the whole store; you start with the cards at the front and you look at some pillows and you come around all the candles and you come all the way through the plants (and almost everybody buys a plant), and then you go all the way through. My husband calls it the ‘gift shop experience.’” 

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.