This paper studies the optimization problem for joint precoding design in a multi-antenna downlink channel using relaying. We formulate the joint source and relay precoding design by aiming at sum capacity maximization. Since this problem is in general nonconvex, we first convert this problem into standard convex quadratic programs, and then propose an iterative joint precoding optimization algorithm by utilizing efficient quadratic programming approaches. We observe that the iterative method always yields optimal precoding matrices which diagonalize the compound channel of the backward (source-to-relay) and the forward (relay-to-destination) links at high SNR regimes. Motivated by this observation, we further develop an efficient structured precoding design. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of our proposed precoding schemes.