City Tech’s veteran Madison Avenue art director John McVicker and student Darryl Menor. Photo, Hicham Saada.

Back in the spring of 2002, New York City College of Technology’s then Dean for Technology and Design, Phyllis Sperling, was mulling ways to improve enrollment in some of the nine departments under her charge. It was not rocket science deciding where to go first to perk up the visibility of the nine fields: the College’s Department of Advertising Design & Graphic Arts.

Its chairman, Prof. Joel Mason, knew exactly where to point Dean Sperling: in the direction of City Tech’s distinguished specialist in conceptual advertising, John McVicker, who, prior to his arrival at the College in 1998, enjoyed a long career at top- ranking Madison Avenue firms as an art director and creator of posters, magazine ads, TV commercials, brochures, and company logos.

Before you could say “thirty-second spot,” the eighteen students in McVicker’s “Design Team” class were working tirelessly, doing research on departmental missions, interviewing chairs, and, in small teams, composing strategy statements. Then came “the fun part for advertising pros,” McVicker recalls, the creative brain-storming stage “where there are no stupid thoughts.” Then a period of in-class critiquing followed.

“We were all over the place, but a few teams were really getting it. Some went for clever headlines, some shot original photography, and others generated original computer images.” Inevitably, a competition shaped up, and three conceptual “contenders” and a few “sleepers” emerged; they were presented at a final meeting of the chairs and the dean.

The winner was Darryl Menor, who proposed a campaign of brightly colored posters “defining each department” and presenting “headlines with a lot of attitude.” Over the summer break everyone had a chance to catch their breath. But when the Fall Semester resumed, the heat was on to have these posters completed and ready for an October 6th “Open House” event at the college. Who better to call than Prof. Lloyd Carr, Director of the Graphic Arts Department. As original photos were taken or stock photography secured, Carr made sure that everything was going to “rip” in a proper manner production-wise. McVicker, Menor and Carr worked tirelessly for two weeks and all went well in the end. “It was pure joy watching Darryl’s face as his work rolled off the press. The results were a beautiful poster campaign for the College.” Dean Sperling and her chairs could not have been happier. These original posters would act as a template for the others.

One of the few glitches amused McVicker. “A photograph of Bill Gates from Corbis was unusable, because Corbis didn’t have a model release from Gates.” This struck McVicker as odd, since “Gates just happens to own Corbis.”

McVicker has known the joy of seeing such projects through to completion for many years. He was hired out of his senior class at the School for Visual Arts by Dave Deutsch of McCann Erickson. Dave later founded “Deustch Advertising,” now ranked 15th worldwide. He found himself working on accounts such as Coca Cola, Mead Papers and the New York Racing Association. His “Big A” posters for Aqueduct are two of three pieces he has in MOMA’s permanent graphic design collection.

He worked subsequently for other top Madison Avenue firms, but most prominently as Vice President, Senior Art Director/Producer at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (then the 10th largest ad firm and now Saatchi & Saatchi DFS), where Proctor and Gamble, General Mills, and Duracell were among his accounts.

He has won just about every major advertising award including a Clio for a Con-Ed poster, a Gold Effie for a national Duracell TV spot, plus many other professional awards from the New York Art Directors Club, American Institiute of Graphic Arts, Type Directors Club, Addy Awards, and Typomundus International.

“Then came the mergers,” McVicker recalls, and several years working as a creative director in London and Ft. Lauderdale for Ocean Cruise Lines (now Orient Lines). Fortunately for City Tech, McVicker was bitten by the teaching bug, first at his alma mater, when he took over a class from Ron Travisano (of the famed Della Femina Travisano ad firm). This led to an offer to teach a portfolio class and a six-year run teaching his own classes during his lunch hour while working at Dancer.

McVicker – who has his own ad studio, Ad+Plus (operated within CUNY guidelines) – has also taught at City College. Feeling that even an old ad pro needed to upgrade his technological skills in the new age of QuarkExpress, PhotoShop and Illustrator, he went back to school at CCNY’s Robinson Center, earning an MFA in advertising design in 1994. He also took courses in Premier and Director, courses which graphically showed how far the digital era had begun to transform the TV industry as he knew it. When the Center’s director, Annette Weintraub got wind of his expertise, she put him in the classroom teaching advertising design and related courses.

City Tech’s future Madison Avenue denizens have particularly benefitted from McVicker’s web of connections with major industry players. His Grand Masters Seminar Series brings them to campus every semester. Among these have been George Lois (“the greatest living ad man,” says McVicker), Roy Grace (“four of the 16 commercials in MOMA’s permanent collection are by Grace”), the brilliant illustrator of Pushpin Studio fame, Seymour Chwast; BBDO’s Phil Dusenberry’s NY Miracle Team (post 9/11 TV spots) and Walter Kaprielian (a former boss of McVicker’s and City Tech’s “most famous ad design graduate”).

McVicker and his design students think that every department at City Tech deserves its own poster. And who is to say that Darryl Menor’s bright idea might not turn into the poster-child for every City University campus?