Conversations with Jennifer Looney

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Looney.

Hi Jennifer, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Before I ever set foot in a client’s home, I was designing for a living in a completely different world. As a fashion designer for a national uniform company based out of Nashville, Tennessee, I spent years immersed in the language of color, proportion, and texture. I was learning, without fully realizing it, the very foundation of everything I do today.
The pivot to interiors was not planned. It happened organically, the way the best things often do. I began decorating my own home and simply could not stop. One room led to another. Decisions became instincts. And what started as a personal passion quietly grew into something much larger. JL Signature Designs was established in 2001, and for more than two decades, it has been my life’s work.
Today, I lead a full-service interior design firm headquartered in Atlanta with a nationwide reach, specializing in luxury interiors and custom window treatments. I have had the privilege of designing homes for Fortune 500 executives, busy families, A-list celebrities, and stylish retirees, each project guided by one simple belief: that beautiful spaces create a better life. My work has been featured in Southern Home and Architectural Digest, and I am a consistent recipient of the Best of Houzz Service Award.
One of the things that sets JL Signature Designs apart is how I approach window treatments. Where many designers treat them as an afterthought, I plan them as an integral part of a home’s architecture from the very beginning, carefully balancing light, privacy, comfort, and proportion so that every space feels truly complete.
My path was never traditional, and I think that is exactly what makes it mine. Fashion taught me that design is deeply personal. Home taught me that design is powerful. And every single day, I get to help clients design their dream home. That is not something I take lightly, and it never gets old.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth? Not even close. And honestly, I think that is what makes the story worth telling.
When I started JL Signature Designs, I was building something from nothing. No roadmap, no guaranteed clients, no blueprint for what a successful design business was supposed to look like. You pour yourself into the work and then you wait, and hope, and hustle. Building a client base from scratch is humbling in ways that are hard to describe until you have lived it.
Then in 2021, after twenty years of building my name and my reputation in Nashville, my family relocated to Atlanta. I want you to sit with that for a moment. Twenty years of relationships, referrals, and community, and I was starting over in a brand new city. It was one of the most challenging pivots of my career. The business I had poured two decades into had deep roots in Tennessee, and suddenly I was replanting everything in new soil.
What I discovered on the other side of that move was that the work speaks for itself. The reputation I had built did not stay behind in Nashville. It traveled with me. And Atlanta has embraced JL Signature Designs in ways I am genuinely grateful for every single day.
There is also the ongoing reality of being a business owner and a person at the same time. Finding the rhythm between running a business and being present for everything else does not happen automatically. It is something you have to choose, recalibrate, and choose again. And like every small business owner, I have felt the weight of slow seasons and economic uncertainty.
What has carried me through all of it is simple, but it is everything. My faith, my family, my husband, and the clients who let me into their homes and trust me with spaces that matter deeply to them. When I walk into a finished room and see someone light up, every hard season fades into the background. That moment is the whole reason I do this.
Twenty plus years in, I am still here. Still designing. Still growing. And I would not trade a single hard day for an easier path.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At JL Signature Designs, we offer full-service interior design and bespoke window treatments for clients who want a home that is both beautiful and deeply personal. I work with everyone from busy professionals and growing families to luxury buyers and empty nesters, serving clients in Atlanta and nationwide. Whether someone is building a new home, renovating, or simply ready to elevate an existing space, my job is to make that process feel seamless, confident, and even enjoyable.
What I am known for is the combination of things I bring to the table that most designers simply do not. My background in fashion gave me a trained eye for proportion, color, and the way materials come together to create a feeling. That foundation, layered on top of more than two decades of interior design experience, means I see a room differently. I am thinking about texture, scale, light, and longevity all at once.
I am also known for my approach to window treatments. In most design processes, window coverings are selected at the very end as a finishing touch. I plan them from the beginning, as an integral part of the home’s architecture. The right treatment can transform a room completely, and I take that seriously.
But above everything else, what sets me apart is how I work with people. I listen. I ask questions. I take the time to understand not just what a client wants a room to look like, but how they actually live in it. My goal is always to translate their vision in a way that feels more like them than they even imagined possible. Attention to detail and follow through are not extras in my process. They are the standard.
What I am most proud of is simple. I have built a business that has sustained and grown for over twenty years almost entirely through referrals and trust. No client has ever had to wonder where I am or whether I care. That reputation followed me from Nashville to Atlanta in 2021, and watching it take root in a new city has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Atlanta has surprised me in the best possible way. When we relocated in 2021, I came in with an open heart and honestly, a little bit of uncertainty. What I found was a city that is alive in a way that is hard to put into words. The culture, the food, the energy, there is always something happening here and it feeds my creativity in ways I did not anticipate.
What I love most is the community. Atlanta has a thriving design and creative scene, and the people in it are generous and collaborative. The clients I have met here are diverse, interesting, and deeply invested in their homes, which makes my work more exciting and more meaningful. And underneath all of it is that unmistakable Southern hospitality that I grew up knowing in Tennessee. Atlanta has its own version of it and it felt like home faster than I expected.
The least? I think every Atlantan will agree with me on this one. The traffic. I have lived in a big city before, but Atlanta traffic is its own experience entirely. You learn quickly to build extra time into everything and to never underestimate a Tuesday afternoon on the highway. It is the one thing I do not think I will ever fully make peace with, and I suspect I am not alone in that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jlsignaturedesigns.com/
• Instagram: @jl_jlsignaturedesigns
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jlsignaturedesigns
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jlsignaturedesigns/