Designer Marie Cloud on Creating Spaces that Give More than Just Good Feelings
There is a difference between a designer who makes beautiful rooms and one who understands why beauty matters. Marie Cloud is firmly in the second category.
As the Founder and Creative Director of Indigo Pruitt Design Studio, Marie has spent years doing the kind of work that quietly changes people — crafting spaces that don't just look good, but feel like relief and a deep clensing breath of fresh air. Her practice is grounded in neuroaesthetics, the study of how the built environment affects the brain and body, and she brings that science to every project alongside something equally essential: the memory of weekends filled with cousins pulling up just because and of music, laughter and a family that understood love as a practice.
That same upbringing lives in her work. It lives in the way she thinks about color meeting you at the door, about light and layered textiles and rooms that hold a tempo.
In this conversation, Marie invites us into the thinking, feeling, and conviction behind a home and a life designed with intention.
What does the 'Rhythm of Home' mean to you, and how does it show up in your space?
The rhythm of home, for me, is the feeling that a space knows you. Not just what you like visually, but how you move, how you rest, what restores you after a long day. It shows up in my home as color that meets you at the door before you even take your shoes off. It shows up in the way I have layered textiles that ask to be touched, in the specific quality of light I chase in every room. My home has a tempo. Some rooms are for gathering energy. Some are for letting it go. The rhythm is intentional because I believe deeply that where we live either costs us something or gives us something. I design my own space to give.
Tell us about a piece of art, object, or heirloom in your home that carries a story.
Why does it matter to you?
I will be honest. I have always admired people who have heirlooms passed down through generations.
That is not quite my story. But what I do have are photographs, and I mean that in the most intentional way. There is this idea that has crept into design culture that family photos are not on trend. That they clutter a space or date it somehow. I reject that completely. Some of the most powerful things a home can hold are the faces of the people who made you. A home that has no trace of the people you love is a showroom. It is not a life.
There is a photo of my grandmother in a gorgeous oval frame that I love deeply. She is our matriarch. She is the woman the whole family orbits around. So much of who I am is rooted in who she is, and having her present on my wall is not decorating. It is honoring. That photo carries legacy, love, and where I come from. It reminds me every day of what I am building and for whom.
How has your cultural background, community, or lived experience shaped your
sense of home?
I grew up in a family where love was the whole point. Weekends were for backyard cookouts and cousins pulling up just because. Not for a reason. Just because that is what you do when you love people. There was always food, always music, always somebody laughing too loud. That kind of love was not just atmosphere. It was a practice, over and over again. That shaped the way I understand home entirely. Home is where love takes up space. It is where people feel held before a single word is spoken. I carry that into every project I take on and into my own space every single day.
When you think about the space you're creating, what feelings or energy do you want it to hold?
I want my home to feel like a deep exhale. I want it to hold calm without being cold, beauty without being distant, and expression without being loud for the sake of being loud. When someone walks into my home I want them to feel something shift in their body before they can name what changed. That is the science and the soul of what I do. I am always chasing that moment where the design stops being something you look at and becomes something you feel. My home is where I get to practice that without a client brief. It is the most honest version of my design point of view.
What advice would you give to someone building a home that reflects who they are?
Stop decorating for an audience and start designing for your life. The most powerful thing you can do is get honest about how you actually live, what actually restores you, and what kind of person you are still becoming. Your home should hold space for all of it. Don't rush past the feeling to get to the furniture.
Start with what you want to feel when you wake up, when you come home, when you sit still for five minutes and have nowhere to be. Let that be your guide. The aesthetic will follow. And if you need support getting there, give yourself permission to ask for help and hire a designer who gets it.
What has the journey to finding your own Rhythm in work, life, and home been like?
Honest answer? It has been a practice, not a destination. There were seasons when my home reflected everything except what I actually needed because I was moving too fast to notice the gap. Building Indigo Pruitt, showing up as a mother and a wife, carrying the weight of what it means to build something that matters — it asked a lot of me.
What changed was when I stopped treating my own home as the last priority. When I started designing with intention for myself the way I design for my clients, something shifted. Work became more focused.
Life felt less like something I was surviving. The rhythm I was helping other people find, I finally let myself have too. That is still the work, every day.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
I have spent the last several years deep in research that most people would not expect from an interior designer. I became obsessed with the intersection of design, mental health, science, and history. That obsession led me to pursue my Science in Design certification with a focus in neuroaesthetics, the study of how the built environment impacts the brain and body. What I found in that research has only deepened my conviction that this work matters far beyond aesthetics.
The data is hard to look away from. Approximately 7.5% of non-Hispanic Black Americans live in substandard housing, compared to 2.8% of white Americans. Black Americans are 1.7 times more likely than the rest of the population to occupy homes with severe physical problems. And Black Americans are 40% more likely to develop high blood pressure than white Americans. Chronic stress is a primary driver. There is a term in medical research called weathering, the accelerated biological aging that occurs from carrying that stress over time. Research confirms that the built environment is particularly relevant for mental health in minority populations, where exposure to poor-quality environments is more prevalent and chronic stress levels are higher. That is not just a housing crisis. That is a health crisis. And the design industry has a responsibility to take it seriously. When I design a space, I am not just making something beautiful. I am making something that supports a person's nervous system, their sense of dignity, their sense of possibility. That conviction drives everything I do. The science confirmed what I already felt. And now I cannot unsee it.
Marie Cloud is the award-winning founder and Creative Director of Indigo Pruitt, a
Charlotte-based interior design studio redefining what intentional design looks like. Her work challenges the predictable aesthetic of conventional wellness spaces, replacing it with expressive, color-forward interiors that center identity and emotional well-being. Featured in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, HGTV, and Essence, and recognized through prestigious installations including the Kips Bay Decorator Show House, Marie brings a distinctive point of view to every space she touches. Her approach is rooted in storytelling, sensory experience, and the belief that design is a powerful tool for how we see ourselves.
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