We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jordan Madison a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jordan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to start by getting your thoughts on what you are seeing as some the biggest trends emerging in your industry.

With the housing boom, many designers in Dallas are working in the spec home industry. For those who don’t know, spec homes are designed with a client in mind, but without one attached. These are quicker than custom homes, but you are working with a builder or investor as your stand-in client. While I am normally inclined towards classic designs, with spec homes trends become more important as you are capturing a certain buyer during a certain time. Right now, we are continuing to trend towards laid back, west coast looks – lots of natural stone, woven lighting and white oak. While clean lines are still key, curvilinear shapes are making their way into every aspect of cabinetry, lighting and furniture. On the custom side, I am getting more requests for color, sometimes fairly bold. This is a rebellious response to the past few years culturally – after being cooped up in our homes, we want a little joy.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a residential interior designer. I knew what I wanted to do for a living at a very young age, but didn’t know until after college the exact market I wanted to work in. I started in commercial design, then pivoted to residential interiors fairly quickly after realizing how involved I wanted to be both with clients and with designing from schematics through completion.

I am most proud of the network of Dallas interior designers, architects, builders and landscape architects who all keep close tabs on their neighboring industries in order to refer the right people for the right projects. I am lucky to be in such a well skilled and growing city. Something that I have been working towards since starting my business is taking on just a few projects a year. I am honing in on projects from the ground up, and seeing them through to furnishings and styling.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

While working at a well known Dallas architecture firm, I knew what I wanted to pivot and start my own business. I would get asked by family and friends to work on small residential projects, but was very intrigued when a good friend asked me to help her husband, co-owner of a rock climbing gym, to help design their new space. I worked on the project in the evenings for months, and ultimately used the profit to jumpstart my business. I still do very little commercial design, so the irony that such a specific niche funded my residential business is not lost on me.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I care a lot about the work that I take on. I am both a perfectionist and a people pleaser, not always a winning combination for me personally, but something that drives me to give my clients really beautiful homes. Getting to know my clients like family, and vice versa, they know that I am thinking about their project even in my off hours, and never letting go of making sure the end result is exactly what we all collaborated towards.

Contact Info:

• Website: JordanMadisonDesign.com
• Instagram: @JordanMadisonDesign

Image Credits
Costa Christ Media, Lauren Logan Photography