Chart Prompts

1,337 ways to dress a line or bar chart, 669 light and 668 dark. Open any chart to see it full size and copy a prompt that gives your own chart the same look.

Every chart uses illustrative data. The prompts work with any coding agent and any charting library; they describe colors, type, spacing and marks precisely enough to reproduce each look.

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Appropriations bar chart, light theme: A state budget schedule with civic blue enacted bars over outlined proposals.

Appropriations

LightBar

A state budget schedule with civic blue enacted bars over outlined proposals.

  • Civic gray#F4F4F2
  • Civic blue#1F3A5F
  • Brick cut#A23B2A
  • Ink#1C2230
  • Rule gray#C9CCD1

Prompt for your coding agent

Paste it with your chart's code. It restyles your data to match this chart.

Restyle my chart in the "Appropriations" style described below. Keep my data, chart type, title meaning and units; change only the presentation. Use the charting library this project already uses (plain SVG if there is none). If the library can't express a detail, draw it in a custom layer instead of dropping it. Measurements assume a 960 x 600 chart; scale them proportionally.

Mood: a schedule from a state government's printed budget document. Formal, sober and trustworthy: a crest rule, small-caps jurisdiction line, one civic blue, a ledger column of figures and nothing decorative beyond that.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Page: #F4F4F2 (pale civic gray) for the whole canvas.
- Civic blue #1F3A5F: primary data marks, the crest rule, header small caps, increases.
- Brick #A23B2A: decreases only (down arrows and negative changes).
- Ink #1C2230 for titles, labels and figures; secondary text #5B616B.
- Rules and dotted gridlines #C9CCD1; alternate row banding #E9EAE7 at 70% opacity.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- Libre Baskerville 700, 27px, ink, for the title, which states the finding ("Governor proposes more for 7 of 10 departments"). Libre Baskerville italic 400, 11.5px, for the document reference in the footer ("Budget in Brief · Schedule A-2").
- Source Sans 3 for everything else, with tabular figures (font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums): header line 600, 11.5px, uppercase, 2.2px letter-spacing, civic blue; subtitle 400, 15px, #5B616B; category labels 600, 13.5px, right-aligned; column headers 700, 10.5px, uppercase, 1.4px letter-spacing, #5B616B; figures 13.5px (enacted 600, proposed 400, change 700); axis ticks 11px; source 11.5px.

Layout:
- 56px side margins. At the very top a crest rule: a 2px civic blue line with a 0.6px line 4px below it across the full width, interrupted in the center by a small seal (circle r 11 filled with the page color, 1.2px blue ring, an inner 0.6px ring at r 7.5 and a small solid five-point star).
- Under the crest: jurisdiction and office in small caps on the left, "FISCAL YEAR 2027" on the right, same style. Then the title, then the subtitle stating measure, unit, the two periods being compared and the total change.
- A legend row on the left and the column headers (ENACTED, PROPOSED, CHANGE) on the right sit on the same baseline, above a 1px ink rule spanning the full width.
- Plot area on the left (labels right-aligned to x 222, bars from x 236 to about 690), a 1px #C9CCD1 vertical divider at x 706, then the ledger columns right-aligned at x 758, 838 and 904.
- A totals row under the ledger with a 1px ink rule above and a double 0.6px rule below (accounting style), labeled "TOTAL, TEN DEPARTMENTS" on the left in the column-header style.
- Footer: a 0.6px civic blue rule, "Source: ..." left, italic document reference right.

Axes and grid:
- Horizontal value axis only: dotted vertical gridlines (0.7px #C9CCD1, dash 2 3) at round values, tick labels under the plot, 11px #5B616B, thousands separators.
- A 1px ink baseline on the left edge of the bars. No y-axis line beyond it, no chart border.
- Rows about 35px tall with every second row banded #E9EAE7.

Marks:
- Bar chart: each row pairs a solid civic blue bar (12px tall, square corners) for the current or enacted value with an outlined bar right beneath it (7px tall, 2px gap, 1.2px civic blue stroke, filled with the page color) for the comparison or proposed value. Both start at the same baseline. In the ledger, each change gets a small solid triangle (10px wide, up in civic blue for increases, down in brick for decreases) and a signed percentage with a true minus sign.
- Line chart: two lines on the same axes, the primary a 2.5px solid civic blue line with square 5px markers, the comparison a 1.5px civic blue line in 5 3 dashes with hollow square markers. Keep the ledger column on the right listing the last value of each series and the signed change, with the same triangles.

Labels and annotation:
- Figures live in the ledger columns, not at the bar ends. Every change is colored by direction. The subtitle or title carries the total change, computed from the data.

Avoid: gradients, shadows, rounded corners, bright colors, more than one accent besides brick, and bar-end value labels competing with the ledger.

When you're done, render the chart and check that ledger figures align on their right edges, every percentage is arithmetically correct (proposed / enacted - 1), the count in the title matches the up arrows, and the crest seal sits centered on the double rule.