Psychedelic Poster Artist

Wes Wilson

Wes Wilson is known as the “father” of the 60’s psychedelic rock concert posters and helped create the trippy look using high contrasting colour palettes and curvy lettering. He was inspired by the organic lines of Art Nouveau and the influenced from the new social tensions of the Vietnam War creating a new chapter of “Peace and Love”.

Starting in 1965, Wes Wilson began to create his own style using watercolours in order to create the figures. Then with that came the entangled lines and patterns along with his iconic lettering which he did in fact create on his own. With his use of watercolours, he was able to create the look of a stained-glass window by using up all the space possible creating a “cellular” look as if it were being observed under a microscope.

The colour choices were made the way they are because Wilson wanted the viewer to be fixated on what it was that they were looking at and to enjoy it. The complementary and vivid colours allowed the poster’s elements to dissolve into the background in a way that felt as if it was melting creating a very stylized yet herd legibility approach to commercial art.