School of Graphic Design Director Emerita Mary Scott can usually be found teaching the programs’s signature portfolio class to both grads and undergrads. This gives her a bird’s-eye view of the students as they launch their careers in design. Prior to coming to the Academy in 1999, Mary taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where she was one of the first recipients of their “Great Teacher Award”. She later taught at Otis College of Art and Design just before coming to Academy of Art University. Mary has been teaching since 1981 and continued doing so throughout her career starting at Capitol Records in 1964.
Her professional life was spent as partner and creative director at Maddocks & Company in Los Angeles, where her projects for Sony Entertainment, Sony Playstation, Procter & Gamble, Hitachi, Disney, Microsoft, Max Factor, Avon and Vidal Sassoon. The firm had offices in New York and Los Angeles and has won numerous design industry awards.
Mary has served on the national board of AIGA, was chapter president in Los Angeles, and received the AIGA Fellows Award from the San Francisco Chapter in 2006. In 2012 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Academy of Art University. Her hobby is landscape and garden design.
