Building color palettes in your data visualization style guides

Data visualization style guides are standards for formatting and designing representations of information, like charts, graphs, tables, and diagrams. To assist researchers communicate their visual content in better and more effective ways, this article accomplishes two tasks. First, we take a detailed look at a data visualization style guide and its components-what it is and what it should include. Second, we create a detailed template for the color section of a data visualization style guide.

Creating a data visualization style guide as described here should help researchers across multiple disciplines create better and more consistent charts, graphs, and diagrams. Such style guides are useful for individuals and organizations in their efforts to be more efficient and consistent in their data communication products.

Data visualization style guides often include explaining the what (eg, types of charts), the why (eg, reasons for using specific colors), and the how (eg, tools or templates) of creating consistent and effective visuals that can also fit within an individual's or organization's larger design system. We use a variety of tools to create, test, and implement a data visualization color palette. We provide sample color palettes and provide step-by-step instructions on how to import those palettes into six popular data visualization tools: Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, Tableau, PowerBI, and Adobe Illustrator and InDesign.