Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Illustration
Now you're in graphic designers' comfort zone. If you're an analyst or in a
more technical field, this is probably unfamiliar territory. You can do a lot
with a combination of code and out-of-the-box visualization tools, but the
resulting data graphics almost always have that look of something that
was automatically generated. Maybe labels are out of place or a legend
feels cluttered. For analyses, this is usually fine—you know what you're
looking at.
However, when you make graphics for a presentation, a report, or a publi-
cation, more polished data graphics are usually appropriate so that people
can clearly see the story you're telling.
For example, Figure 3-19 is the raw output from R. It shows views and
comments on FlowingData for 100 popular posts. Posts are separated by
category such as Mapping. The brighter the green, the more comments on
that post, and the larger the rectangle, the more views. You wouldn't know
that from the original, but when I was looking at the numbers, I knew what
I was looking at, because I'm the one who wrote the code in R.
Figure 3-22 is a revised version. The labels have been adjusted so that
they're all readable; lead-in copy has been added on the top so that read-
ers know what they're looking at; and the red portion of the color legend
was removed because there is no such thing as a post having a negative
number of comments. I also changed the background to white from gray
just because I think it looks better.
I could have edited the code to it my specific needs, but it was a lot easier
to click-and-drag in Adobe Illustrator. You can either make graphics com-
pletely with illustration software, or you can import graphics that you've
made in, for example, R, and edit it to your liking. For the former, your
visualization choices are limited because visualization is not the primary
purpose of the software. For anything more complex than a bar chart,
your best bet is to go with the latter. Otherwise, you will have to do a lot of
things by hand, which is prone to mistakes.
The great thing about using illustration software is that you have more
control over individual elements, and you can do everything by clicking and
dragging. Change the color of bars or a single bar, modify axes width, or
annotate important features with a few mouse clicks.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search