{"id":59461,"date":"2019-09-13T15:55:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=59461"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:31:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:31:43","slug":"rock-poster-exhibit-brings-back-the-sixties","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/rock-poster-exhibit-brings-back-the-sixties\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Poster Exhibit Brings Back the Sixties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Rock Poster Exhibit Brings Back the Sixties\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

In the late 1960s, universities in the United Kingdom were a hotspot for rock bands. An alternative venue to nightclubs, university stages were a platform for bands in their infancy, propelling some of them to fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon the legendary Led Zeppelin would form, major acts like the first incarnation of The Animals would disband, and there would be short-lived successes for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, Brian Burns was attending City, University of London and the Central School of Art and Design as an engineering student. He\u2019d been interested in music and art from a young age, so when he was approached to design a poster for an upcoming university dance, Burns didn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the \u201860s and there were rock bands and we were in London!\u201d he says. \u201cI was a London lad and it was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon he was creating posters for universities across the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the MacOdrum Library<\/a> at Carleton University will be displaying the posters in an exhibit starting Sept. 16, 2019 and running through November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burns came to Carleton as a visiting professor in Industrial Design<\/a> in 1980. He was the first coach of the Carleton soccer team and, after over 30 years teaching, he became director of the Institute of Environmental Science. Even though Burns is retired, he still works with the Technology, Society and Environment<\/a> program and continues to do what he did in the 60\u2019s… make iconic posters.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Brian<\/figure>\n\n\n

Making Iconic Posters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Burns says that one band that wasn\u2019t big at the time eventually became Roy Orbison\u2019s backing band for the next 20 years. When Burns first started, he created a poster for a show at Northampton Hall featuring Hopscotch and The Playground. The poster stands out in a vivid blue and brown negative with the words \u201cSO COME!\u201d across the bottom. The members included Hamish Stuart, who would later join Paul McCartney\u2019s Wings, Mick Strode, who had recently left Robert Plant, and John Bonham, who would later form Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was just that period,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were a lot of big bands there who relied on colleges and universities to launch, they were big venues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Burns, exploring the medium was the best part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was silk screen, hand-cut silk screen,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we had no money, so it had to be one or two colours only, I loved exploring that within the technique, so that I could get the maximum out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burns\u2019s posters were originally screen-printed onto standardized poster paper. Each poster typically ran in quantities of 100 and because most were placed in public spaces, many have been damaged and destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burns recalls the time he was asked to create a poster for The Who in two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was no electronic media then, so when I did The Who poster, all I had was a really lousy scrap of black and white photo from the music paper of Pete Townshend,\u201d Burns says. \u201cWe had to just draw everything, I had nothing to work from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Brian<\/figure>\n\n\n

The \u201860s Vibe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The posters have a definitive \u201860s vibe. One for The Zombies is arranged with crimson red and amber in an art deco style. A poster for the College of Birmingham featured the band Cream \u2013 wit Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. Their hits \u201cSunshine of Your Love\u201d and \u201cWhite Room\u201d were big in North America. Burns\u2019s poster for Jimi Hendrix is bordered in a vibrant yellow, accented with a rendering of the musician\u2019s gaze in burnt orange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m drawing, I like to try to make every shape have a character of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burns knew at the time that he was in a pivotal moment in music history,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAround the early \u201860s, people went to dance,\u201d Burns says. \u201cBut once rock became big, people started to stand and watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when people got very discriminating about what they were wearing, whether they were cool or not based on the instruments they played, or how they moved,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was all very petty, but watching was how you could tell what kind of band they were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Burns, the evolution of the British rock scene was kickstarted by student unions who decided to host the bands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were in the student union one day and Bob Dylan\u2019s producer showed up with his guitar, saying he\u2019d been booked to play some songs,\u201d he says. \u201cHe hadn\u2019t. We didn\u2019t know where he came from or who booked him because it was that casual. So, he played.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Burns may have left most of his poster-making days in the past, today he still creates portraits of musical icons like Elvis Presley and Billy Joel. A four-part poster of The Beatles he\u2019s drawn hosts bright cobalt blues and purples with strong lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me this is who they are,\u201d Burns says, gesturing to his art. He points at the poster of George Harrison in bold magenta. \u201cHe\u2019s too pink though, that\u2019s got to come down,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It still takes many hours to get a piece just right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me years to find an image that I thought was George,\u201d he says. \u201cI really have to figure out how I graphically summarize it and give it character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it\u2019s been about 50 years since Burns started designing posters, he believes they still hold a lot of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUniversities were really a big part of developing these bands,\u201d he says. \u201cThe stories of how they formed and had hits or disappeared is just fascinating and it\u2019s cool to bring it back here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burns is selling his posters online at bb1967.com<\/a>. The original posters have been digitally scanned and are printed locally in Ottawa, hand-stamped and signed by Burns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late 1960s, universities in the United Kingdom were a hotspot for rock bands. An alternative venue to nightclubs, university stages were a platform for bands in their infancy, propelling some of them to fame. Soon the legendary Led Zeppelin would form, major acts like the first incarnation of The Animals would disband, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":59474,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28,25],"cu_story_tag":[1918],"class_list":["post-59461","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/59461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/59461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97306,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/59461\/revisions\/97306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=59461"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=59461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}