Lee Conklin began designing potsers for the weekly concerts and happenings at the Fillmore, San Francisco, in 1968. His characteristic style developed through combining his detailed hand drawing techniques with the effects of hallucinogenic drug use. In "The Art of the Fillmore", Conklin is quoted saying "I made it my misssion to translate my psychedelic experience onto paper."

Conklin would frequently work on his designs while ‘coming down’ from an acid trip, producing surreal, densely detailed effects in eye-dazzling colours. A persistent motif is the human body, distorted and transformed into bizarre and sometimes disturbing forms, as with this poster advertising a concert for the Butterfield Blues Band, where the central figure is composed entirely of hands.

Conklin's drawing style was influenced by the German satirist, Heinrich Kley, and American artist, Saul Steinberg, best known for his covers for the New Yorker. But it was after reading a feature on Wes Wilson that Conklin decided to relocate to San Francisco, and found himself in the midst of the Summer of Love. He was to design 31 posters for Fillmore between 1968 and 1969.