Thread by @realscientists

Here's a thread on basic tips to help improve your next science figure! 📝 (ie common mistakes I see). It'll cover:
1) Contrast (color value) ⬛️⬜️
2) Color (it’s a tool, not decoration!) 🌈
3) Fonts 🔤
4) Image Resolution 📷
5) Spacing / margins 📐
6) By request! 💡

1a) Ahh contrast.. my favorite topic! If we lived in a world of black & white, contrast would actually be less of an issue (because we'd notice it immediately). Color variation can trick you into thinking something is legible!

1b) Left image - looks decent, but dark on dark elements getting hard to read. Right image - if converted to black and white (great trick to check contrast btw) becomes almost illegible and purple dots disappear. Bad for color blind and if figure is ultimately printed in B&W!

1c) Now, left image - much clearer with proper contrast! Right image converted to B&W just to be sure. Text is legible. Could even go darker on glucose molecules.

1d) This introduces the concept of COLOR VALUE, the lightness/darkness of a color. Basic rule of thumb: when putting together figure, avoid stacking elements with similar color value (ie keep it light on dark, or dark on light). Surprisingly underestimated / avoidable mistake!

2a) Color as a tool! How many of you have sat through a talk where the speaker refers to the "blue line" and there 4 shades of blue lines in the graph? Or experienced death by colored spreadsheet? 😵 The key is to use color sparingly and only if necessary.

2b) If you're ever looking for inspiration for a 'palette' of colors, Adobe's color wheel is a good start! tinyurl.com/ybmf5yz3 Complementary colors (purple+yellow, orange+blue) are a good combo when highlighting a part of an image 🎨

2c) Using complementary colors as a tool to create accents / draw attention to areas is used in many other design industries!

3) Fonts: typography is an art & science in itself 👩🏻‍🔬 I came across @reidhoffman's (timely) podcast episode w/ @marissamayer ystrday. She mentioned notion of legibility vs. readability of font in @Google's early designs..

3b) Basically:
Legibility = ease of distinguishing each letter (ie sans serif fonts) vs.
Readability = ease of reading words across a sentence/paragraph (ie serif fonts)

Whichever you chose, stick to 1-2 fonts max! "Font families" (light/thick versions of 1 font) also helps!

4) Image Resolution👍🏽 Simple rule of thumb for DPI (dots per inch):
Web = 72dpi (fast loading speed)
Presentations = 150 dpi (balance of sharpness + PPT not crashing on you!)
Print = 300 dpi (highest quality needed for printers and naked eye to distinguish)

4b) If you use Photoshop or Illustrator, my favorite web-safe export is Save for Web option! Great compression - very sharp but small file size.

4c) And of course, try to use "vector" images whenever possible! I could spend a day on this, but essentially vector-based images are mathematical paths whereas raster-based images are made up of dots/pixels. Vectors = infinitely sharp edges

5) Margins 📐 This 'rule' is so simple, makes a huge difference, and is almost always broken! All you do is pick 1 unit (usually a nice border width) and follow that SAME unit all throughout your figure. It cleans it up in an instant! Nice example here: campuslifeservices.ucsf.edu/documentsmedia…

Phew! that was a lot.. thanks for sticking with me! Hope some of those design tips were helpful 😊. I've only scratched the surface but happy to take any design questions if you have any 💡