Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Hunt.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Both of my parents heavily influenced me; my dad was a Naval Carpenter aboard the USS Little Rock during the Vietnam War and then became a tool-and-die maker in a machine shop – and he’s built almost everything in my parents’ house. My mom always had craft projects going on, and she sewed all of my Halloween costumes growing up. In different ways, you could say they were both Makers. As a result, I learned to build and sew at a pretty young age, which helped me develop strong problem-solving skills. On top of that, my mom volunteered with our local community theater in Erie, PA, and I grew to love watching narratives come to life on stage (I was in a handful of shows, too). That’s 100% where my love of storytelling came from.
As a kid, I had big dreams of working for Disney one day as an animator or storyboard artist, so I went to art school at CCAD in Columbus, OH, because it was close to home and one of Disney’s top feeder schools at the time. After a year of animation in college, though, I realized I didn’t have the patience for it. BUT, I had a work-study job in CCAD’s “3D Illustration” lab as a lab tech, and I discovered how much I love hands-on work (no surprise given my parents). The 3D Lab was the sculpture lab for all commercial purposes: packaging design, toy design, miniatures and models, prosthetic makeup, etc., and I spent at least 20 hours a week there on top of my full course load. I also saw the future of computer-aided art early on, so I packed my schedule with a ton of computer classes as electives, too – I even remember when Photoshop only had ONE “Undo” in it and not the whole History palette.
I graduated with a BFA in 2000 and could pretty much go anywhere because I had a strong art and design background coupled with physical 3D work and a knowledge of digital – a very odd mix of right- and left-brained abilities.
In the 25+ years I’ve been a working professional, I’ve done a little of everything: packaging design, production art, magazine production, food styling, theme park cart design, merch design, storyboarding, menu board fabrication, social media content, video production, app design, and recently some Creator work for Nugget children’s furniture and Dollywood Parks & Resorts. I’ve worked in-house, freelance, and agency-side; and I am more than happy to talk about all the benefits and drawbacks I’ve experienced in each situation.
My “big break” came in 2016, when one of the custom-cut paper wedding invitations I’d made for my husband and me when we got married in 2014 made its way into the hands of Jennifer Barclay, the Creative Director on the Arby’s social content team at ROAR Groupe (part of Publicis Media). My cut paper hobby became my full-time job from 2016-2021 and gave me a ton of opportunities: I spoke at SXSW, I was on two panels at MomoCon, I got to travel the country to different conventions and events, and my “art” took center stage for a big brand’s social media. It was lightning in a bottle and a totally a once-in-a-lifetime team and client relationship.
I’m in my “Act III” of my career (my “Giving Back Era”): in 2024, I signed up with the “Talk to a Creative Director” program Louis Wittig started during COVID; and in 2025 I joined the board for the new Atlanta chapter of The One Club for Creativity. My goal is to connect more of Atlanta’s Creative community and help build up the next generation of emerging talent. For so long, people have gate-kept the Creative community to a certain few, and I think that’s short-sighted and dumb, to be honest. I’ve always believed the best work comes from diverse opinions, so I am very free with my knowledge, expertise and network to open the door for others.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Yes and no. I realized as soon as I got to college that I didn’t have the inborn, natural talent so many of my classmates did. But I had a lot of drive. I had to work twice as hard to get half the results they got without any effort, but I really learned how to push myself and hustle all the time if I was going to succeed.
And because I’d done a number of community theater and high school shows, I knew how subjective “casting” could be. As soon as that clicked, every interview was more like an audition and I knew either I had what they wanted, or I didn’t – and it stopped bugging me as much when I got another “no” or was part of a layoff. You can only control what you bring to the table, and sometimes what you’ve got isn’t on the menu that day.
I moved to Atlanta in 2011 right after I’d lost a job I loved at Dippin’ Dots Ice Cream on their in-house Marketing team. Not gonna lie, it took a while to build up credibility in a new, much bigger city than where I’d been. That was when I discovered all the contractor agencies (Aquent, Vitamin T, Robert Half, OnwardSearch, TCG) and the roles I got through them helped get me embedded with the ATL Creative community. I met a lot of amazing people who’ve opened doors for me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in cut paper art! I got really known for it while I was part of the Arby’s social media content team from 2016-2021, and I’m most proud of getting to speak about the work with two members of my team at SXSW in 2019. We also got written up both by ad industry publications AND by a number of gaming and anime sites, which proved our fandom-based marketing strategy at the time was working.
I think what really sets me apart is the speed with which I build – without blueprints. I use a lot of reference materials, of course, but most people assume there is a digital file somewhere I’ve used as either a template or a file for a Cricut or laser cutter. Working on Arby’s, there was never time to go to those lengths – I would just start to “build” and the piece would grow from there. Do I own a Cricut and/or a laser cutter? Yes to both, but they were never involved in my Arby’s work. As I’ve been slowly re-posting my old work on Instagram, Threads, and Pinterest, I’ve gotten several frustrated comments saying, “Where are the templates? How can I make one of these?” and I’m sorry, but there never were templates I could share.
As a performer, too, I like making puppets – and I even made one for Arby’s entirely out of their food packaging cardboard in collaboration with PlayStation / Santa Monica Studio when “God of War” came out in 2018. My profile picture is me with that puppet – Jörmungandr, the World Serpent from Norse mythology.
In the last two years, Jennifer Barclay has hired me to do some Creator work for the brand she now works for, Nugget. I take the giant cardboard boxes the furniture comes in and turn them into kid-friendly props they can play with. I’ve even made instructions for one of the more complicated builds that parents can download from the Nugget site.
Since 2019, I’ve also been a regular contributor/artist donor to the Bombshells ATL adult Easter Egg hunt started by Vanessa Toro. You can see my love of Disney coming through in the art eggs I make every year from cut paper on my Instagram page.
I have a real knack for making architectural renderings in cut paper, too – something from back in my theater set design days. I’ve made two of the buildings at Dollywood as gifts to members of the team there as shadow boxes, I made a special piece for Regions Bank as part of a new business pitch, and I’ve built most of the Garden Center at the Home Depot for a stop-motion Creator piece for a post that went live on Christmas Day 2025.
Oh, and my Illustration major from CCAD came in handy, too – I did a lot of “sauce drawing” for posts by squeezing Arby’s Sauce directly out of the packet to make art by hand. And my sauce handwriting even became two custom fonts – Saucy_AF and Fancy_AF (after convincing the clients that “AF” stood for “Arby’s Font”)
Any big plans?
The agency I work for has made a pretty significant investment in AI, so I’ve gotten to ride the wave of seeing how AI can enhance Creative work – not replace it. I’ve said it before, but any tool can make someone “mid” look great for a little while (hence, all the AI slop we’ve seen), but it’s the people who are actually GOOD at what they do that can make any tool really shine. It happened to photographers when Photoshop came out – Photoshop shook up the industry for a minute, but then the real pros showed how powerful of a tool it is.
My husband Brandon and I regularly collaborate on Creative projects, too… and we have something cooking as a new side project we’re very excited about. That’s not ready for prime time just yet, though.
I’ve had an idea to do an entire Tarot Card deck out of cut paper, and fingers crossed, 2026 is the year that will kick into high gear, finally! I’ve been <slowly> re-posting all of my cut paper work to Instagram in the order I did it, too. I used to have it all on my portfolio website, and it took up way too much server space – so migrating it all to Instagram, where the space I can take up is infinite, is working better. But it’s gonna take a LONG time to get it all up.
Other than that, I’m going to continue doing what I do and helping to build up the Creative community here in Atlanta. I do a lot of portfolio and resume reviews for young people just starting out, and I am more than happy to introduce people to my connections so maybe they’ll get their “big break.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://scottandrewhunt.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottcutspaper/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottandrewhunt/
Image Credits
Profile photo (me and the puppet of Jörmungandr from “God of War”): Jared Kozel Sauce Drawing for Saucy_AF font: Kirsten Thieman Howl’s Moving Castle: Jennifer Barclay Me holding Regions Bank piece: Christy Cross Nugget Claw Machine: ©2026 Nugget (All other photos were by me)
