Effective Figures and Visualization

Making Images

Guidelines

1. Use descriptive axes and titles, include units, and make the fontsize large (~16 pt.). Include other relevant technical information (like the DFT functional you used) in a textbox below the image.

2. Use appropriate color schemes. Colorbrewer can help you pick combinations of colors which look good. Use different shades to accomodate colorblind users.

3. Don’t put too much data on a single plot. What are you trying to say? Like your writing, your images should “tell a story”.

Note: Many past QE, Prelim, and other presentations can be found on Box. Use the images here as a reference: What works? What Doesn’t?

Outside References

• Seaborn is a Python package which can make better, more sophisticated plots than matplotlib

• Designing Images for Colorblind People

• Colorbrewer

• Matplotlib Documantation is useful. The tutorials can help a first-time user get started.

• A wide range of color options are available with the matplotlib ‘xkcd’ tag (yes, that XKCD), the list of colors is here