Critiques: Newtown and white noise

This following two posters come from a contributor who has asked to have identifying information removed from these posters. The creator of these wrote:

I think you can see the design sensibilities in these. There’s a lot more thought to typography, colour, and layout than I usually see (or do myself!).First, we have a neighbourhood poster that pulls off some sophisticated grids (switching from 2 column to 3 column layout), has good use of icons, and interesting type choices.

I would be a little concerned if this was hung in a conference session where the light was low. Some features, like white text on the light blue background, might wash out if it was in dim lighting.The next one is notable for me because I always find “portrait” posters (taller than wide) tricky. This one uses colour to make the reading order, in bands, clear. The muted colour palette is effective and appropriately calm (for a hospital poster). The drawing of the hospital bed combined with the large and evocative type used for “White noise” is an excellent entry point. Indeed, the “White noise” is an excellent example of the beginning typesetting exercise, “Make the word look like the thing is represents.”

My concern is that there is a lot of small text there. I would be deterred from stopping at it because of that.