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he psychedelic posters of the 1960s featured graphics and visuals meant to evoke the hallucinations that follow after the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin. In the 1960s, historically speaking, there was much going on. This included the space race, Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, and Beatlemania. San Francisco became the epicenter for young people to unite for protests, drum circles, and lots of dance concerts featuring trippy music from the likes of The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Since back then these bands were barely starting out, they needed to try to get more people to go to their concerts. A good way to increase attendance was by advertising with really cool posters. Another factor that helped these bands grow was that it was easy for people to take posters home and become loyal fans of them because it was a physical item that could easily be collected by tearing them off telephone poles. The Filmore and The Avalon Ballroom were two of the best concert venues in the city. Promoter Bill Graham decided to hire artists to create better looking posters to drum up ticket sales. These posters were covered edge to edge, some with flower patterns, abstract curves, and nearly illegible lettering that was meant to grab your attention and keep you reading. However, this movement was also inspired by the Art Nouveau movement, which started about a century earlier. Specifically, Art Nouveau’s abstract forms, use of patterns, and feminine figures. Unlike Art Nouveau’s use of natureinspired colors however, the Psychedelic poster palette featured high contrast colors that would make the eyes “vibrate” to recreate tripping on LSD. A few leading artists of the 1960s psychedelic poster movement were Wes Wilson, Bonnie MacLean and Victor Moscoso.
∆ Rick Griffin, Pow Pow, Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, SE, 1967. Left, Quote from Timothy Leary at A Gathering of the Tribe, 1966.
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∆ Wes Wilson, The Grateful Dead, Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band and The Doors, 1966.
∆ Wes Wilson, Trips Festival, 1966.
Wes Wilson, The Association, 1966. ▷
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Wes Wilson, an American artist born in 1937, was one of the first innovators of the psychedelic-poster style and created many of the very strong images of this the event’s information. This is precisely what keeps the reader engaged with the poster. This flyer captured the attention of rivals, Bill Graham at The Fillmore and Chet Helms at The Avalon Ballroom, to work with Wilson more and see what he could do for them and their concerts. After a while of working with both of them, Wilson decided to stick to working with just The Fillmore, since he felt that he had more freedom when designing with Graham than with Helms. Another one of his most famous posters that he did was one in 1966 for The Association. This poster features the “vibration” feel mentioned earlier with the colors red and green that contrast very well, and are
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in fact opposite on the color wheel, with amazing visual effect. In this poster, it is also very hard to read the lettering due to the curvy lines that it uses. However, he uses all these curvy lines to keep the reader’s eyes in motion because he wanted to create posters that were designed not to be read, but to be experienced. And lastly, a third was a concert poster for The Grateful Dead, Junior Wells Chicago Blues Band and The Doors, done in 1966. The line work done in this poster was printed using very intense high-contrasting colors to also make the viewer’s eyes have that motion and be extremely hard to read. In this poster, a few patterns he uses throughout the drawing that move one’s eyes from left to right. He uses a human face that takes up almost the entire poster and the repeated lines he uses on the neck and face, help the eye move up and down.
c Bonnie MacLean, an American artist born in 1949, was known for her rock posters. In 1960, Bonnie graduated from Penn State University with a degree in French. After college, she decided to move to New York City and while she was there, she started taking drawing classes. Finally, in 1963, she moved to San Francisco, where she met Bill Graham while working at the Fillmore. MacLean and Graham married on June 11, 1967. After several years of marriage, they divorced in 1975, Graham said, “... if there was one person without whom The Fillmore would not have happened, it was Bonnie... She was critical, and she was creative.” After Wilson left The Fillmore, she took over designing posters with the little formal training she had from previous drawing classes. One of her most popular posters was one for The Yardbirds and The Doors done in 1967. This poster features a woman’s face framed by a peacock, which was a very popular animal in Art Nouveau work. The colors in this poster are very vibrant shades of blue, green, and orange. Another poster of hers was for Eric Burdon and the Animals, Mother Earth, Hour Glass done in 1967. This poster, once again, features a woman’s face with hard to read lettering as her headdress and the line movement goes from edge to edge. Lastly, MacLean did a poster for the now very famous band, Pink Floyd, and others including Lee Michaels and Clear Light in 1967. This poster features a man with an ornate pattern in his clothing occupying the entire right side while the text occupies the left. The colors for this poster are bright red, yellow, and orange against a black background, which makes them pop more.
∆ Bonnie MacLean, The Yardbirds and The Doors, 1967.
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∆ Bonnie MacLean, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Mother Earth, Hour Glass, 1967.
∆ Bonnie MacLean, Pink Floyd, Lee Michaels, and Clear Light, 1967.
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Another prominent artist of the Psychedelic movement was Victor Moscoso who was born in Spain in 1936. Moscoso was one of the few major artists of the movement with formal art education, having attended Cooper Union in New York City as well as Yale University. Moscoso moved to San Francisco in 1959. There, he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he eventually became an instructor. One of his most famous posters is for The Chambers Brothers done in 1967. This work featured vibrant and high-contrasting colors within a large image. The image itself features a woman with sunglasses on. Inside the glasses is a different kind of lettering that is meant to imply the drug culture period in which this poster was made. The movement of the lettering evokes what someone on LSD would see while at these concerts. Therefore, it reminds the audience of a good time when looking at these posters and makes them want to go where they will experience that once again and collect the poster as well as a memory of these good times. Another work also by Moscoso, was for The Miller Blues Band concert done in 1967. This poster has a striking image of a nude woman taking up almost the entire size of the poster. This shows how it was inspired by the beautiful silhouette of women used in Art Nouveau. This poster also features linework that curves around the woman’s body and covers the poster from edge to edge, keeping the viewer’s eyes occupied and not letting them stray away. The typeface in this poster is a little more legible than in other posters, but it still has a chunky feel to it that makes it almost impossible to read at a glance. Lastly, another striking poster of his, was done for Big Brother and Holding Company in 1967. It features a large image almost taking up most of the poster, uses red and blue pinwheels as a background, and a border with information about the event that is hard to read. He also uses very curvy lines in his border that help the movement of the eye. And lastly, the color palette he chose for this poster is a great contrast of red and blue which creates visual vibration.
∆ Victor Moscoso, Big Brother and Holding Company, 1967.
∆ Victor Moscoso, The Miller Blues Band, 1967.
Opposite: Victor Moscoso, The Chambers Brothers, 1967. ▷
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Opposite: Nike SB Dunk Low Grateful Dead, 2020.
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The Psychedelic poster movement of the 1960s featured curvy lines, fun patterns, bold colors, and figures of women that kept the viewer engaged with the art. Today, others are inspired by those colors, styles, and more. An example of this would be Nike SB Dunk Low Grateful Dead shoes. They are very in-your-face looking shoes with bright colors, just like the
posters. They also feature a wiggly line across them, which helps lead the eye. Another example of the Psychedelic posters’ style being used today would be the immersive art experience of Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that features multiple exhibits with vibrant colors to evoke a trippy feel. Thus, the spirit of 1960s psychedelic posters is alive and well today.
∆ Meow Wolf Graphic, 2017.
∆ Santa Fe, New Mexico, Meow Wolf, 2019.
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