"Canned Heat" Concert Poster for Fillmore West

Lee Conklin's 1968 poster for the Canned Heat concert at Fillmore West shows how psychedelic design took things to a different level by experimenting with the blend between readability and complex visuals. Conklin had a unique approach where the typography itself became part of the visuals by transforming it into surreal shapes like faces, bodies, and other organic symbols.

What makes this poster stand out is how Conklin pushed back against the typical modernist design rules. Instead of keeping text neat and separate, he had it coming out of an orange and pink urn in a mushroom-like form, and he hid messages within swirly, biological imagery. This was a clear rejection of the corporate way of separating text and decoration. It was all about embracing a new perspective and seeing things as a whole which reflected the counterculture's deeper ideals.

Although it started in the San Francisco music scene, Conklin’s blending of typography with this kind of organic imagery eventually influenced mainstream design. His work impacted not only album art, but also underground comics and later extended into digital design. Conklin’s experimentation with these subcultural elements helped shape the way designers approached the integration of text with visuals, showing how a countercultural movement such as this could challenge and change mainstream design practices.